


Feels Like Home

by butbythegrace



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist (Anime 2003), Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types
Genre: Abduction, Alkahestry, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Death, Dark fic, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Dubious Consent, M/M, Memory Loss, Mystery, Referenced Sexual Coercion, Roy Mustang backstory, Sickfic, Spoilers, Starvation, The one where Roy takes Ed home, Underage - Freeform, You've done it before you can do it again, somehow there's a happy ending
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-25
Updated: 2018-04-15
Packaged: 2018-11-18 21:14:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 51,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11298975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/butbythegrace/pseuds/butbythegrace
Summary: With Al missing and Ed in the hospital fighting for his life, Roy wonders how things could get more complicated. He opens his mouth, and then they do.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone! Some of you may remember me. I used to go by AngylLayDying and had a fic that went by Bringing the Puppy Home, which for some reason was popular back in the day. And seriously, bless you who stood by and read that. ;-; When I got back into writing and decided I wanted to finish it, I went back and started to reread it and just cringed. So. Hard. You guys, I started that story when I was fourteen. I was like, not old enough to be doing what I was doing. Holy shit. I am so sorry.
> 
> SO. Here I am. Rewriting that SOB, because even if I don't put as much effort into this rewrite as I'd like, even this is better than what it was and this story (and you guys) deserve it. Enjoy.
> 
> There will be untimely (and very likely inaccurate) medical information but I Do Not Care™.
> 
> Find me on [tumblr](https://butbythegrace.tumblr.com/)

It was noon when Roy got the call that Alphonse had disappeared. He was on his way out of the office for lunch when the phone rang, and he almost didn't pick up. It was Winry, and she was in tears. Al had left a simple note – "Don't bother looking for me" – and nothing more. She couldn't get ahold of Ed, was he there? Did Roy know where he was? There was a messenger on his way to Ed's apartment, but did Roy think he would be anywhere else? Roy told her he would find him.

He was fortunate Havoc was supposed to be driving them to lunch anyway. Because while Havoc drove, challenging the speed limits, Roy's mind flew even faster. He didn't think Al would be stubborn enough to take off after Ed so late in the mission, knowing his brother would be returning to Central any day. Ed, on the other hand, had definitely been stubborn about letting Al know when he returned, and Roy wondered if he should have gone ahead like he'd wanted and told Al himself.

It was the first mission Ed had been on since getting Al's body back, his first one alone. The brothers had decided Ed would serve out the remainder of his enlistment on his own, Al staying behind in Resembool to live with the Rockbells. More like Ed had made this decision on his own and refused to let his brother follow him, despite Al's dismay.

Ed returned to Central a few days prior. After his given 24 hours of personal time, he postponed his in-person report for the next 48, claiming some sort of illness. He was due to be in the colonel's office within an hour, which also meant Roy knew just where he would be. He was quickly picking up on Ed's habits because ever since Ed had succeeded in getting Al's body back, he and Roy had started this, _thing_. Seeing his purpose as fulfilled, Ed had started to pursue his own interests. He had decided one of those interests to be Roy Mustang and from then on there was nothing Roy could do. He was powerless to bright gold eyes and mismatched hands. Whatever the two of them were, it was still new and hesitant and delicate. Neither of them had yet given in to the inevitable. But Roy. Roy was already gone.

The car slid to a stop at the curb of the tall gray apartment complex. Roy took the stairs two at a time, around the corner, second door on the right. He knew it by heart. It was open, and for a moment, Roy thought Ed would be waiting right there. Waiting for someone, for him. Maybe with Al, even. Or maybe it was a prank. Maybe he was going to burst into the apartment and scare the shit out of Ed and get yelled at and hit and-

Roy froze in the doorway.

Edward lay on the hardwood floor. Edward lay on the hardwood floor, limp, a stranger applying compressions to his chest. Dread washed over Roy's shoulders and down his back in a wave, filling his lungs.

"He just went down!" the stranger, who Roy assumed to be the messenger, yelled. Short brown hair, green eyes full of fear. "Less than a minute ago! Call an ambulance!"

The soldier in Roy took over, and for a rare change, he was grateful. Everything slowed down. No, waiting for an ambulance would take precious minutes. And if Ed wasn't breathing, if his heart wasn't beating, minutes was all they had. He didn't remember entering the apartment and stooping down to take over compressions, but suddenly that's what he was doing. If they couldn't get Ed breathing within a few rounds, choices would have to be made.

The messenger started rescue breathing, coming up as Roy continued compressions. He was young and looked terrified. "Nick," he introduced shakily as Roy did compressions. "I came to tell him his brother is missing."

One two three four five.

"He looked ill. He reacted as you would expect."

Six seven eight nine ten.

"He started acting like he couldn't breathe. And then he went down."

Knead the bread, back from the dead.

Ed already looked dusky and Roy knew the odds were not in his favor. Decision time. As he finished compressions and the messenger moved into rescue breathing, Roy yanked Ed's shirt up to expose his chest, rising with borrowed breaths. He grabbed a nearby marker and uncapped it with his teeth, dropping the lid to the floor. He waved a hand low to get Nick's attention. "I'm going to need you to stop after this round. I'm going to shock him."

Nick barely finished his second breath, scrambling backward as Roy swiftly drew a transmutation circle right over Ed's heart, fast enough to not let his shaking hands skew the array. He pushed both hands to Ed's chest, focusing, sending a pulse through Ed's body. Nothing. Roy clenched his teeth and took a few harsh breaths, counting to three. A bead of sweat trailed down from his hairline to his cheek. He had to be careful. He had to get it just right.

He sent another, stronger pulse through Ed, the teenager's limbs jerking, and his chest heaved with the biggest breath Roy had ever heard someone take. The sudden relief Roy felt was so strong he had to steady himself with a hand to the floor. Ed groaned, heart thrumming erratically under Roy's remaining palm, but he didn't open his eyes.

As Roy lifted Ed he caught sight of the messenger, who was as pale as a ghost, leaning against the couch. Roy knew Ed was heavy, knew he should feel dense and dragging because of the automail, but he moved him with ease. The messenger scrambled after them, slamming the apartment door behind him. Round the corner, down the stairs, as fast as he could manage, the other young man at his heels. The stairs deposited them right into the parking lot.

Havoc, who was standing at the boot of the military vehicle lighting a cigarette, paused when he saw the trio approach, his eyes wide. "Hospital!" Roy roared as Nick yanked open the back door. Roy all but threw Ed into the backseat, climbing in over him. Havoc had thrown himself into the driver's seat and as soon as the back door was closed, he pealed out of the parking lot.

Roy looked out at the back window at the young man who'd gotten more than he bargained for this morning. Nick wavered a bit and sat down on his ass right there in the parking lot, staring at the pavement. Poor kid.

Roy turned his attention to Ed, who was still breathing, but barely. He clenched his jaw and cradled Ed's head in his lap, willing him to just hang on. Havoc didn't speak and Roy was grateful, because he was busy drinking in every bit of Ed's face as if he would never see it again.

When they screeched into the hospital drop off zone there was a medical team waiting for them. Apparently Nick hadn't spent too much time on his ass in the parking lot because he had phoned to warn the hospital of Ed's imminent arrival. They pulled Ed from the backseat, another one of them opening the car door on the side Roy was sitting, clipboard in her hand, bombarding him with questions. Ed had long since disappeared into the emergency room doors after the few minutes it took Roy to answer them. Havoc had already taken post at the hood of the car, smoking a cigarette. Roy shakily exited the vehicle, closed the door, and leaned against it. He slowly slid down until he was sitting on his ass right there in the parking lot, staring at the pavement.

Havoc held out his pack of cigarettes in offering, and without looking, Roy took it.

* * *

Ed stopped breathing because of a seizure.

He had no history of seizures or epilepsy to the military's or even Roy's knowledge. Of course, if asked such a morbid question, Roy would give him a perfect score for going about it in typical Ed fashion, from 0 to 100. He went on to have two more, both lessening in severity than the one before them. It was not a common occurrence for someone's first seizure to be so catastrophic that it caused cardiac arrest, so the medical staff began to wonder if something else could be wrong too. As if it could get any worse. But then it did.

Because in the mean time they became almost certain Edward had contracted inhalation anthrax. It was a coincidental find. Ed was fortunate he was obsessive and a mess and despite insisting on having long hair, hardly ever washed it because it took too much time. And that's where they found the spores.

"Chimeras," Roy told the doctor. Ed had been sent south to deal with rumors of a farm full of them. "Enormous chickens with patches of reptilian skin laying eggs the size of dinner plates. Horses growing sheep's wool."

"Sheep's wool?" the doctor asked, perking up. "Did he have close or direct contact?"

Roy nodded. "He also mentioned stacks of wool inside a storage room."

The only way to know for sure if Ed was infected was to wait for his medical cultures to colonize, and that would take valuable time. If they were right then Edward's symptoms suggested he was already in the second stage of the disease, carrying with it a 90% fatality rate. Roy didn't hesitate to sign the waiver releasing the doctors of any liability if it meant they would start treatment immediately.

The doctor said that if the seizures stayed under control, they would chalk it up to his body's reaction to anthrax. He was on the brink of going into shock and lesions were starting to develop in his lungs. It would be difficult for them to know the extent of the damage until Ed was completely healed, and that would take a long time.

The oxygen mask over Edward's face fogged with each breath. Roy could hear him wheezing, his heart aching with the particularly difficult breaths. He felt himself revert to the days he had gone to church with his older brother. His elbows on his knees, hands together, he felt himself naturally prepared to pray even though there was no longer a higher power he believed in.

Havoc had since been traded for Hawkeye, and she bounced between phone calls with Hughes and keeping Roy company. She hadn't asked him any questions yet, nor told him what was going on at the other end of the situation, and he was grateful. Roy was zoning out while the doctor continued to talk, but he did get the gist of it.

The treatment for anthrax was sixty days of high dose antibiotics.

A long hospital stay would not be in Edward's best interests.

The doctor tapped the clipboard with his pen. "It would be most ideal for him to be in a home setting."

That broke through the colonel's brain fog, his eyebrows climbing high. Right at that moment, he knew he was in trouble. Beside him, Hawkeye crossed her arms.

"Keep in mind, this is a big job. He will need a clean, calm environment, and intravenous and intramuscular antibiotics. The house he is in will need to be cleaned. I or one of my assistants will check in on him weekly. It will be work, but he needs this. And frankly so does my staff. If I told them Edward Elric would be here for an extended stay I think half of them would quit."

Roy could already see Hawkeye doing the math, figuring out where should would put Ed in her one bedroom apartment, fitting his care around Black Hayate's walks and yelling at Roy to finish his paperwork. While said colonel sat there, brain screaming at his body to call Hughes. Call Hughes, not because he has an extra bedroom, not because Gracia would love nothing more than someone else to mother over, not because he could easily fix this mess, even though all those things would certainly be great right at this moment. But first and foremost, Roy needed Hughes to stop him. He opened his mouth to excuse himself and ask for the phone.

"I'll take him," his voice said, going ahead without him. Roy wasn't even aware it was he who said it until Hawkeye turned to look at him in bewilderment. His eyes widened in realization. He swallowed hard.

Oh. Well then. Shit.

* * *

Some time after Hawkeye had abandoned him, leaving him alone to process the enormity of what he had just done, Roy made the call to the Rockbells because he knew being the one to tell them was the right thing to do, even if he was shaking while he did it. It had taken them some time to forgive him after finding out about the murders and he was still terrified of them both.

When Roy gave her the news, Winry was bordering on hysterical. He could hear the tears in her voice, begging him to keep Ed alive as if his word were God. She wanted nothing more than to be there for him but they were currently combing Resembool for Al. Since he was 16 and still considered a minor the police took the runaway report immediately and it was keeping everyone busy. She hesitated before telling Roy he would be the first she would call if anything new came up, and that she would appreciate the favor returned.

Roy then contacted Hughes, who of course seemed to know everything that was happening. He said he had already expressed interest in dealing with Al and at that point he was just waiting for the case to be opened and handed to him. When Roy told him that he had agreed to care for Ed at his home, his friend fell silent.

"What? You didn't already know?" the colonel asked as innocently as he could for someone who was guilty as fuck, even if he was marginally surprised that Hawkeye hadn't ratted him out as soon as she'd left.

Maes let out a long breath. "That's going to be a hell of a lot of paperwork."

Roy groaned at the near instantaneous headache that word gave him. "Thanks for the reminder."

"You probably should have called me first, Roy."

"You're telling me," he said dryly. He had woken to another average day. Now he was looking at two months of being tethered to Ed's well being.

"Just be careful. Whatever is going on is probably going to end up on Ed's doorstep."

They hung up shortly afterward. One upping Hughes in the intelligence department was a rare feat and the colonel could just feel him itching to get back up to speed.

When Roy returned to Ed's room a nurse was taking his vitals. He stopped in the doorway with an 'oh' loud enough for her to hear and look up. "I'm sorry, I'll just-" he started, moving to point down the hall to the waiting room. In all honesty Roy wasn't sure exactly what had brought him back to Ed's room, as his brain had planned on going home but didn't seem to be executing good control that day.

"Oh no, Sir, I'm just charting now," she said, waving him off. Wrinkles fanned out around her brown eyes when she smiled. "Please come in."

Roy thanked her and awkwardly had a seat in the chair opposite the bed side of her. The sheets were pulled down to Ed's waist and they hadn't dressed him in a hospital gown yet. His chest was mottled with bruising from the chest compressions and the colonel wondered how many of his ribs were broken. Smeared remains of the circle he had drawn surrounded one of the many electrodes on Ed's chest, monitoring his heart. Roy must have been obviously staring at the spot because when he looked up the nurse was smiling at him. "That," she said, pointing to the black smudge, "was very quick thinking, Colonel. You saved his life."

Roy smiled wryly. "I take it this doesn't happen often."

Her laugh made him relax, and she shook her head, brown curls bouncing. "And unless it starts to, this will be one of those stories we tell until we die."

Her name tag said Linda but she introduced herself as Lin. She remembered each of Ed's hospital stays, which was impressive considering the amount of times he had been in and out over the last nearly six years. She said that Edward never ceased to surprise her, not that it was a good thing. And then quietly added that she looked forward to the day that she never saw him there again. Roy couldn't agree with her more.

Roy followed his intuition and wrote the Rockbells a letter to warn them of the military's possible agenda. He hated that he had to, but he would hate himself even more for being right and not giving them that knowledge. Roy knew there were a few higher ups hoping to sink their claws into Al when he turned 18, and his sudden departure wasn't going to sit well with them. If Al didn't show up within a few days, it would be more than just Hughes and his team with their noses in that file. He hoped the letter would make it to them before the military did.

And as he predicted, it was barely over three days since Al had been reported missing that the military kicked things into gear. Despite their prized alchemist being in the hospital with a near death sentence, they were more curious about the disappearance of his brother. Roy knew they could easily sweep their motives under the rug by claiming that, since Ed was still Al's legal guardian and incapacitated, they were to assume that role until he was fit to. Within the next two days they performed their own search of Resembool, including one into the Rockbell home. The two women had prepared themselves in time to deal with it, but Roy really did hate it when he was right. The only plus side to how it was being handled was the amount of manpower currently working to find Al.

Roy hadn't managed to catch Hughes in person since the incident began. The first few days of a case did tend to be the busiest, so the colonel was pleased to get a phone call from Hughes at the end of the second day into the military's investigation, five days since Al had disappeared. It was early evening and Roy was sitting at his desk, leaned back in his chair.

"We're moving on from Resembool. There was nothing between there or Central, either. Not one train station employee saw him." Maes paused and Roy could picture him rubbing his eyes under his glasses. "I really thought he had more sense than to head toward Ed's mission site."

"Could have slipped between the cracks to avoid getting caught. Wouldn't be the first time an Elric stowed away where they weren't welcome."

Hughes made a dismissive sound. "But even if he did. He would have sought Ed out by now," he pointed out. And he was right. Unless Al was intricately skirting around them on purpose, he would have surely been seen. There would have been no keeping him from Ed, especially as ill as Ed was. "We're going to start looking from Kadayr to Central first. If he did try to meet Ed on mission, he's surely moving on by now."

And if that yielded nothing, they were going to start searching other areas frequented by the Elric brothers. When Roy hung up, he briefly contemplated writing a letter to the Curtises to warn them. And then remembered Izumi Curtis was terrifying enough without having a grizzly bear for a husband and decided they would be fine.

Throughout it all, Roy continued on a relatively normal schedule. He went to the office and grudgingly completed his work. He started to count the days Ed had been in the hospital on his calendar, leaving marks so tiny no one would notice and ask him what they were for. He spent his lunches dropping something by for Ed to try to entice him to eat, even though Ed still hadn't managed anything since he sporadically drifted in and out of consciousness. Roy wasn't usually there when he came to, but when he was Ed would clamber for his hand and asked about his brother. His voice was coarse and barely above a whisper, and he never stayed conscious long enough for an answer.

After a week had passed, things started to settle down. Ed's fever finally broke. His lung culture came back positive for anthrax and Roy thanked Edward for being an obsessive mess who hated getting his hair wet like he was a damn cat. The paperwork that had to be done to approve Roy's six weeks of leave was more of a pain than the mountainous amount he had to do for Ed, but even though it was boring and lengthy, it went without a hitch and all approvals were made, to the his relief. The higher ups were probably just eager to get him out of their hair while they kept on with their sorry at attempt smoothing the aftermath of Bradley's disappearance, but he'd take it.

The nurses began to train him, starting with simply dosing out Ed's medication properly. He learned that Ed had two different pain medications, one that was taken every eight hours and another that was PRN, and that PRN meant 'as needed', for whenever Ed needed a little extra to get him through to his next regular dose. The nurses always spoke to Roy as clearly as possible so he liked to listen to them talk among themselves, using abbreviations and slang that he was so unfamiliar with it was like listening to them slip in and out of a different language. They taught him how to glove his hands so the gloves stayed sterile, which was a lot more complicated than he assumed it would be. The real test was learning how to put together an IV and start Ed's antibiotic, something that would have to be done once a day, and Roy worried that it wouldn't be so easy when Ed was conscious and able to fight back.

The Rockbells visited for a brief time, going a little out of their way to Rush Valley. Pinako and Winry had planned to spend the winter down south with Dominic and Paninya but had been unsure and apprehensive about going through with their long awaited trip, concerned Al would return home while they were gone. Their solution had turned up in the form of a childhood friend of Winry and the Elric brothers. When Roy mused aloud that he was worried about how the young man would handle himself if the military showed up, both Pinako and her granddaughter burst into laughter. He wasn't sure what to make of their reaction and it must have shown on his face. Winry shook her head and beamed. "He can handle it." Which didn't help reassure him much but Roy tried to pretend that it did.

They were both taken aback when they first saw Ed. Winry's blue eyes were wide, Pinako's lips pressed thin. He was pale and had lost weight, his chest heaving to manage the weak, raspy breaths he was taking. He was still on oxygen and had an IV line at both his left elbow and hand. Winry was the first to approach the bed. "Ed," she whispered tearfully and grabbed his hand, carefully avoiding the IV, and had a seat in Roy's chair. Ed's face twitched at the sound of her voice. His golden eyes blinked open and peered at her blearily. "Hi," she whispered.

The corners of his lips twitched up. "Hey Sis," he whispered back, so softly it could barely be heard through his oxygen mask.

She carded her free hand's fingers through his bangs, pushing them back. "I am so sorry, Ed," she said tearfully.

Ed huffed twice and grinned, so Roy assumed it was supposed to be a laugh. "I told you," he rasped, voice like gravel, words slurred. "Take your eyes off him for second, you're in trouble."

Pinako stepped forward, arms folded. Ed's foggy eyes seemed to focus on her. "You knew trying to keep that boy away from you was impossible, and you tried to do it anyway, you stubborn little punk."

Ed grinned and closed his eyes, face slowly relaxing. He was probably falling asleep. Winry shook her head. "You've got to fight this, Ed. If you die I will never forgive you." She squeezed his hand but he didn't react. Roy thought that was going to be it, as that was the most he'd heard Ed say in one go so far.

But then Ed surprised him. His eyes stayed closed and he sounded far away, but his words were clear. "Keepin' an eye on a teenager. Too much for you, old lady?"

Winry laughed quietly and Pinako's face relaxed. She tilted her head up at Roy, then smiled and nodded. "He'll be fine."

Roy let out a single breathed chuckle and could have sworn he saw Ed's eyes flicker and crinkle at the corners, if only for a second.

A couple hours later Roy dropped the two women off at the train station. When Winry stood before him, head lowered and fists at her sides, the colonel wasn't sure what he should be expecting. If it was a barrage of punches he totally deserved it, he just would have preferred a warning, even though that was _not_ something he deserved. He was tense when she threw herself forward and hugged him. He was so surprised his arms hung out in the air for a moment, before he managed to call himself back down to earth and return the hug. She was crying and kept repeating 'thank you' into his jacket. After Winry was finished using his clothes as a handkerchief (which he did not mind at all, truly, she could have used him for a doormat and he would have gone with it), Pinako stepped forward and shook his hand, repeating her granddaughter's sentiment. The tentative acquaintanceship between the Rockbells and Roy was like a wobbly colt on brand new legs. Sometime during the frequent contact they would be making it was either going to fall or run, and at least in this instance, it took off running. Maybe by the end of this ordeal he would be able to see them without feeling like the biggest piece of shit that ever existed.

Roy went home that evening to find his house had been cleaned from top to bottom, particularly careful attention being paid to the bedroom and bathroom Ed would be using. He remembered Hawkeye mentioning this would be the day, but he had forgotten. It was probably for the best. The very thought of strangers in his home made his skin crawl so he preferred to not think too hard on it. He wound his way throughout the first floor, aimless but restless. He had lived here his whole life, and the rooms told him their stories as he passed through. But the stories weren't always old, and Roy preferred the new ones anyway.

There was the chair at the end of the breakfast bar where Ed liked to sit, legs swinging as he talked animatedly about whatever it was that had his attention then. Half the time he would forget Roy even offered him something to drink but Roy would never remind him right away. Edward was beautiful moving with such intensity and passion and to interrupt him would be sin. And so Roy would fold his arms on the counter and just enjoy the view.

The loveseat in his library was where Ed had accidentally read himself to sleep two nights in a row. He had been so excited when he'd first seen all the books in Roy's personal collection that the colonel had just let him at it, and at it he went. He spent the rest of the week's afternoons there, but switched to reading at Roy's desk instead because he was certain the impromptu sleepovers were going to start worrying Al. When Ed had finally made his way through the tomes he had most wanted to read, Roy found he had very much enjoyed Ed's company and the house seemed a little too quiet in the evenings after it ended.

When Roy got to the stairs he stopped. Ed had not wriggled himself far enough into Roy's life to have gone up them yet. It was seldom anyone else ever did. Hughes and Hawkeye had several times to get his stupidly drunk ass into bed, but other than that, Roy could only recall he and his brother. He had never invited someone else into this part of his home, and he wasn't sure if it felt real yet, even though Ed's room was ready made with its hospital-crisp bed and IV pole and sharps container and –

And right across from his own room.

Roy's eyebrows climbed high at this obvious realization.

And then he could feel it. The world shimmying its way over onto his shoulders. Reality speeding toward him like a brick wall. But he was quick to chase it away with shot glasses of inebriation and decided that, if he had to jump through this hurdle, this coexisting with another person, he was glad it would be with Ed. And after mulling over what that thought meant for barely a moment, he decided on another shot. And another, until his brain shut the fuck up and he successfully dragged his own wasted ass to bed.

Which, he was still painfully aware, sat right across the hall from Ed's own.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did I blame Ed for the cursing? My bad.

It was 10 days in when Ed started to wake up a bit. The doctors attempted to evaluate his mental status as best as they could. Things like his name, age, and where he had been the day he went down came easily. But they quickly found he was missing scattered memories. Some trivial, some huge. The month. His apartment number. The fact that it was he who insisted on Al staying in Resembool.

Roy carefully questioned Ed in front of the doctors to help them get an idea of his windows of memory. "When did you last take some time off?" had him fumbling for the fabric of time when Ed had gotten Al's body back. Ed seemed confused and offered up a hospital stay nearly seven months earlier. That was after all hell had broken loose, and then suddenly extinguished itself with little explanation. Shortly after the transmutation in Liore, Ed had disappeared and been declared AWOL, leaving Al behind with Roy's team, and the sorry lot immediately returned to Central with an extremely upset suit of armor. Two days after Ed's disappearance, the Fuhrer, his secretary, and all of the homunculi were suddenly just _gone_. Ed had been found crawling out of an alleyway in Central by his brother and was subsequently delivered to the nearest emergency room. From a legal standpoint things hadn't looked good for him due to the proximity of the situations, in both place and time, but nothing could be proven.

The brothers went on to retrieve Al's body a mere four months ago. Afterwards Ed was granted two whole months of leave, mostly due to having pulverized his automail into oblivion which proved him useless until replacements could be made. Roy managed to hold off sending Ed away on a mission for another six weeks after that – and somewhere within those two months and six weeks they started arguing less and talking more and listening and _looking_ , and there was a lot of looking and that was probably where they had gone wrong.

"What time did you leave for your last mission?" Roy wanted to know if Ed remembered it was he who drove him to the train station, Roy's mouth his had ghosted over before grinning and pulling away. Ed had made a point of nodding to the dashboard clock because he was late.

"7:16 pm," Ed answered hoarsely, giving Roy a weak crooked smile that sent his heart tumbling.

But then Ed couldn't remember what he had done on his mission. He remembered what he felt. He remembered there being blood and the word he kept repeating in his head was 'dispatch' as he tried to work as methodically as possible. Because that was the cleanest way to put what Edward had been forced to do to that day, and even if he couldn't remember the chimeras. His face told Roy that he also remembered the fear and the guilt and the shame.

Roy wanted to ask more; deeper, darker questions. But it wasn't safe to here and he knew that, and he would just have to wait. Ed was already out again anyway. The doctor said his oxygen levels were still low, and he would tire out easily for some time. They weren't sure if the memory problems were associated with the seizure or the lack of oxygen while he had been in cardiac arrest, or just general brain fog. The doctor tried to be comforting in pointing out that illness throwing off circadian rhythm could be very disorienting, but the colonel remained unconvinced it was what had Ed drawing blanks.

Roy was not mentally prepared for the twelfth day. The antibiotics Ed would be receiving in his care were intravenous, and instead of leaving a line in his elbow or repeatedly puncturing holes into his veins, the nurse was going to put in a temporary port near his collarbone. To do this procedure they had to sedate Ed, who took enough tranquilizers to take down two of himself (all limbs included) before he responded to them. He was high as a kite through the procedure, and still afterward when Hawkeye was visiting and brought up his impending move to the Mustang residence. Ed was due to go home with Roy in two days, and apparently this had not been relayed to him while conscious. He was immediately irritated.

"Forcing me to move in with him is going to make it really difficult to keep up this casual sexual tension we currently have going." He still talked soft and slow, but had since been moved from an oxygen mask to nasal cannula and there was no denying what he had said.

A silence fell over the room.

Hawkeye's mouth formed a silent o, her eyebrows raised. Ed sat tall in the bed, weaving a bit, and the colonel was suddenly very aware of how much time he had spent in Ed's hospital room for the past twelve days. She looked backed and forth between the two of them and Roy could feel his face grow hot. "So many things make sense now," she said.

Ed shrugged, looking at her unashamed. "Sorry if it ruined your casual sexual tension but you had plenty of time to jump on that ship." Ed's head lolled in Roy's direction and he blinked his half-lidded eyes seductively slow. "Is there anyone else I need to apologize to?"

Roy kind of wanted to bury his face in his hands and die but he decided it was useless to hope for such mercy. He didn't want to look at Hawkeye, he knew it was written all over his face, but he looked up at her anyway. She slowly shook her head as if she pitied him and then in a rare moment, she laughed. "Holy _hell_ , Roy. You've got to get him out of here before he starts telling _everyone."_

Roy wasn't sure if her comment was an insult to his sex life or the fact that Ed had yet to come down and he probably would have been happy to tell the brass in his current state. Yes, that day they were fortunate it was only the first lieutenant in the room. And really, in the end, her finding out could have gone worse.

* * *

Hawkeye drove them to the Mustang residence. Ed, who hadn’t been drugged enough to forget what he said two days previous, refused to look at her the entire time, blushing furiously against the car door in the backseat. She didn’t pay him any mind, just like she hadn’t questioned Roy’s motives when he first offered to take Edward home. She’d looked at him strangely for a moment, but it passed, and that had been it. Even now, as they parked and exited the vehicle, she simply removed Ed’s suitcase from the trunk and carried on up the path to the house without a look in his direction. The blonds were partaking in some sort of ignorant triangle and Roy was caught in the middle.

Roy wondered how Hawkeye felt about the situation now, knowing what he had been hiding from her. A silent Hawkeye meant she was thinking. He wanted to explain it was so new that he himself didn’t even know what it was, or if it was worth telling anyone before it even began. He wanted to do this, but he wasn’t sure how, because if nothing became of it, then what? Face the failure twice? No, thank you.

He knew better than to assume her blasé reaction was fueled by the excitement to stretch her wings as an honorary colonel. She would give him an undisclosed amount of time to bring it up on his own before she would start with the subtle threats to his well-being.

As soon as Ed let himself out of the vehicle, Roy knew the stairs were going to be a problem. The hospital had rolled him out in a wheelchair, as per their policy. He dismissed any suggestion of taking it home because he had two legs that worked just fine thank you, and it would be a cold day in hell when he would use it longer than the hospital could make him. And Roy let him make that decision, because Ed did a fine job of hiding the severity of his weakened state.

Hawkeye left Roy to be the only one to bear witness to Ed’s struggle to his front door. He had his flesh arm wrapped across his chest as if he were holding himself together, a sash of honor for what he’d just won against. His jaw was clenched tight and Roy could hear him gritting his teeth, but every now and then a soft curse would slip by. Roy walked by his side, hands in the pockets of his black coat, trying to not make it obvious he was watching Ed out of the corner of his eye. Roy didn’t know how many ribs had cracked underneath his hands, what it felt like to be zapped back to life, how badly each breath burned with sick lungs. It was easy for Ed to make everyone forget what he had just gone through and because of that Roy would not say a damn thing about the wheelchair. Roy shouldn't have fallen for the Elric stubbornness and let it happen.

When he reached out to touch Ed’s side, Roy wouldn’t have been surprised if Ed’s reaction was to snap at him and make a big show about it. But Ed was quiet when he stopped and looked at him, eyes sharp and jaw still clenched. Whatever else he was feeling – irritation, frustration – was being smothered by discomfort and exhaustion. He let Roy see this, as if to tell him without words that he had no choice but to accept his help, before he looked away and leaned into his superior officer. He was trembling. The colonel hooked his arm under Ed’s automail one and accepted all the weight Ed was willing to give him, and they continued to walk. Ed had to let go of his chest to pull himself up by the handrail. It rattled in his grasp.

Ed already knew the first floor of his home. Knew the bright, open foyer, the den to his right and the great room straight ahead, with its vaulted ceilings, big fireplace, and open stairway to the second floor. And, most importantly, the two overstuffed couches separated by a dark wood coffee table. As soon as he was through the door, Ed slipped out of Roy's arm and made a beeline for them. He lowered himself gingerly to the cushions, leaned back and let his eyes flutter shut, hands gripping the upholstery as he steadied his breathing.

Roy shrugged off his coat and went to the kitchen, where he could hear Hawkeye making her presence known. It turned out she was looking for the liquor. They each took a shot, silently clinking the glasses before tossing back the burning liquid. She pressed the fingers of her free hand to her forehead, shook her head, and set the glass in the sink. She then walked around the breakfast bar to the front table and unloaded the file folder filled with paperwork Roy was expected to work on. He took an extra shot.

After ten or so minutes of making sure everything was in order, Roy stood with Hawkeye in the foyer, the two of them considering the great room. Ed had since removed his coat and moved to lean with his back against the arm of the couch, conveniently facing away from them. Hawkeye was quiet for a long while, just looking at the back of Ed’s head. He flinched when she cleared her throat. He was waiting for it.

“Good luck with your casual sexual tension,” she called. Ed’s hands reached up to clap over his ears and he made a gravelly, pained sound.

She tilted her head in Roy’s direction and offered him a small smile. “I will keep in daily contact as we discussed,” she said as she opened the front door. “I believe next week we will be brushing up on the team’s firearm dis- and re-mantling techniques,” she continued, eyeing him meaningfully.

“Duly noted,” he said with a smirk, taking the door in his own hand and opening it the rest of the way for her.

After she had gone and the door had closed with a click, Ed hesitantly started to turn around. And Roy realized, as Ed’s eyes looked up and focused on the end table that sat between them, that he had forgotten to put away the one photo of family he had sitting out. All the times Ed had visited previously, he’d never stuck around any rooms other than the kitchen or study, and Roy even remembered making a mental note to put it away before Ed moved in. What in the fuck was Roy running on lately? Fuck.

Ed touched the picture frame. Roy knew it was obvious, and so he waited for it. A corner of the teenager’s mouth tipped up. “You have a brother.”

Roy took a deep breath and nodded. “I did, yes.”

“Oh,” Ed said softly, face falling. “’m sorry.”

“Thank you.”

And Ed left it at that. Roy wasn’t sure if it was because Ed was finally being socially intuitive for once in his life, or if he was too tired to care. Ed decided to answer that question for him. He clasped his arm across his chest and pushed himself to stand. “I’m tired.”

“About that,” Roy said warily, closing some of the distance between Ed and himself. “We may have a bit of a problem.” He gestured behind Ed, who deadpanned at the sight of the stairs. Ed had no stamina to speak of and a body that hated breathing and stairs didn’t fit neatly with either of those things. He looked at the staircase and then to Roy, his expression flat.

“My room is up there?” he asked, pointing up. Roy nodded. “There’s no bedroom down here?”

“I’m afraid not.”

Ed dropped his hand and crossed his arms. “I knew it. I knew you hated me.”

Roy looked to the ceiling, knowing if he tipped his head back just far enough then Ed wouldn’t even be able to accuse him of rolling his eyes. “I don’t hate you, Ed.”

“Well it’s either that or just you livin’ up to your name, Colonel Useless,” Ed grouched, leering.

“Roy will do fine,” the colonel said without thinking as he turned to look at Ed. His grin faltered when he saw the way Ed was looking at him. It was dark and intense but not angry, the blond’s lips parting as he exhaled.

“Roy then,” Ed said quietly, the sound of his own name in the younger man’s voice stirring something in Roy’s blood. Ed smirked as if he could sense it. “Certainly doesn’t have the same ring to it, does it?” He angled his body towards Roy just so subtly, but his eyes on Roy’s mouth were not being subtle at all. Roy swallowed.

“You’re the second room on the right. A closet, the bathroom, and my room are on the left. I’ll get some lunch started while you head up.” He stepped away, toward the kitchen. Ed’s face fell, mouth shutting with an audible click. He turned on his heel and started up the stairs, fiercely at first, almost as quickly as Roy went to the kitchen, as if they were running from each other.

From the kitchen Roy could hear the thump of Ed’s boots and slow, long pauses between every few steps. After a several minutes, the colonel stepped away from his food prep to peak out the kitchen doorway. He observed as Ed reached the head of the staircase and sat down there to rest. He ducked back in before Ed could look up and see him.

He sighed. They were going to have to figure something else out until Ed got a little stronger.

When the soft thud of boots on the upstairs carpet hit Roy, he froze. He’d told Ed second _room._ He nearly tripped himself running to and up the stairs. He’d told Ed _second room_ but it was the _third door_ and he always forgot that Max’s room had _two doors_ because he really was an idiot – fucking hell he was running on idiot juice today -

He hit the head of the stairs and saw he was too late. Ed was standing in the doorway to his brother’s room.

Roy had accepted that Ed would eventually do it by accident, or even on purpose from pure nosiness; he just didn’t expect to be standing right there when it happened. Nor had he expected his own slip to lead them straight to it. Roy wasn’t quite ready to confront these demons. He thought maybe he could still slink away, but then Ed was turning to look at him. He had to have immediately known it wasn’t his room. It wasn’t clean like it was supposed to be, and it was absent of the hospital equipment. The sheer curtains were drawn and cast the room in muted blue light. And when Ed looked at him, Roy saw his own expression reflected there. Surprised, but pained. “Would you prefer we pretend this didn’t happen?”

Roy wanted to. But he knew he would be too much of a coward to ever bring it up on his own. He took a deep breath and tried to hide the defeat in his voice. “No. No, it’s okay.”

Ed hesitated. “May I?” he asked. Roy nodded. Ed looked at him for a moment longer before turning and crossing the threshold. Roy followed, from the stairs and through the door.

Max’s room wasn’t exactly as he’d left it all those years ago. That didn’t go to say it hadn’t been for quite a while, five years to be exact, before Hughes had found out and put an end to that era. The only visible personal effects left were what Max had cared for most: his books. He had a few dozen or so, well-worn and very much loved, sitting on shelves above the dresser. The only other things in this room sat below, and Ed immediately took notice. He ran his hand over the top of the low dresser as he walked around it, before stopping to regard the items placed there. He reached out to touch the name plate.

“Lieutenant Colonel Jacob Maxwell Mustang,” he read aloud.

“He went by Max.”

"Max Mustang," Ed said with a smile. "Nice name."

Next to the name plate was a glass box that held a folded Amestrian flag. Ed reached out and touched it with his flesh hand, running his fingers over the carved wooden edges. Roy remembered shaking when they first presented it to him. It had felt like a lead weight in his arms.

“In the line of duty.”

Roy swallowed hard. “That’s right.” Ed looked at him, brow furrowed and eyes darkened, and nodded before looking down at the carpet and closing his eyes. There was silence. Ed leaned on the dresser with both hands as if he were settling in to wait for Roy to say something. He didn’t want to. It was nothing but one terrible story after another, and this one wasn’t even the beginning. When Roy finally went to open his mouth, Ed was pushing off with purpose, past him and towards the door.

“Sorry, laying down,” he said as he exited, sounding a little wheezy.

Roy sucked in a breath and sat down on the edge of his brother’s bed as he realized Ed had only been resting, not waiting for him to speak, and he sat there for a long moment. God, he _really_ was an idiot today. He really was about to drop that entire sob story right onto Ed, who was less 24 hours out of a near deadly hospital stay. He was 0 for 4 in the crisis aversion department and it wasn’t even noon. He could blame the alcohol, but deep down he knew it was just him. What was wrong with him?

Roy stood and touched the name plate before exiting. He closed the door as quietly as he could.

“Mustang,” a weak, gravelly voiced called. If he hadn’t expected Ed to be on high alert, Roy would have flinched. Ed’s door was just a couple feet from his brother’s, so Roy stepped over and nudged it open. Ed was lying in bed, eyes half lidded, looking exhausted. He hadn’t bothered to move under the blankets or even take off his boots before laying down. Despite his haphazard state, the eyes beneath the exhaustion pierced into Roy. “Don’t think I’m letting you off the hook. My memory might be shit sometimes, but don’t test me.”

Roy tried to remain stoic through his surprise. “Wouldn’t dream of it,” he breathed. The visible corner of Ed’s mouth twitched up and he closed his eyes. Roy shut Ed’s door and stopped in front of his brother’s, laying his forehead to the cool wood. 1 for 4 was still pretty terrible.

* * *

Three hours later Roy nearly jumped out of his skin when Ed’s hand reached from behind him and snagged the paper he was reading.

“What the-! Ed?” The blond flashed him a grin and Roy eyed him distrustfully. “You move awfully quietly for someone who didn’t a few hours ago.”

Ed had already deemed the report more important than whatever Roy had to say and was quickly skimming it. He took a step back when Roy reached for it. “Going down the stairs is easier. What?” he said when he looked up at the face Roy was making. “’s not my fault, you’re the one who stuck me up there.”

Roy’s irritation dampened and his expression softened. “We’ll get something else figured out for you,” he said. Ed regarded him for a moment. Then looked back to the paper.

“Took them three days to jump in on this, eh? I’m surprised they waited that long,” he said, padding slowly around the back of the couch to the front, settling in near Roy. His eyes didn’t move from the report.

“They were waiting for him to show up in Central,” Roy said, successfully snatching the paper back.

Ed snorted and reached out to grab a paper off the coffee table before them, unfazed. “Like he would have been that dumb.”

Roy didn’t look at him. “It’s a perfectly logical assumption.”

Ed’s eyes didn’t move from his material, either. “ _If_ you’re assuming Al is other people. Which he isn’t.”

Roy looked up and blinked. Touché.

They hadn’t discussed Al at all yet, and the colonel decided now was as good a time as any. He surrendered the paper to the coffee table, only for Ed to snatch it back before it even settled, a page in each hand. Roy was leaned forward, elbows on his knees, observing as Ed went back and forth between the two articles, seemingly oblivious to Roy’s stare. “Aren’t you worried Ed?”

Ed still didn’t look at him but glared at the papers in his hands. “I had a panic attack that triggered a seizure and cardiac arrest. Is that worried enough?” He snapped, tone so sardonic Roy immediately felt guilty for the way he’d phrased the question.

“You just…don’t seem so much, anymore,” the colonel tried again.

Ed snagged his bottom lip between his teeth, only for a moment, but Roy noticed the gesture of anxiety. “I’m worried. But I’m trying not to be. The way that messenger made it sound was that he had been kidnapped or something. Al wandered off a lot when we were kids. He would run away and hide for hours if he was upset or angry, and as he got older those hours easily turned into days. Running away is new at this point in his life, but not new to him.”

“So you think he could be throwing a temper tantrum by going camping?”

Ed shrugged. “Maybe.” He laid the papers down, turning his attention to a map of a portion of Amestris that was laid out on the coffee table. “Very possibly he’s traveling on foot. I know it’s getting cold, but we’ve managed through worse. He probably did head to Kadayr first because he doesn’t trust a word I say these days and figured if he came to Central I might not be here, and then he would surely get caught. But if he went on foot to Kadayr first, he could have easily avoided exactly the way the military did things,” he said, tracing his thoughts out on the map.

The colonel folded his hands, resting his chin on them, unsure. “I don’t know what I think about that.”

“I don’t either,” Ed said, giving Roy a sad little laugh. “But right now I’m bound to this house and I can’t do a damn thing either way. So I think it’s best to lie to myself right now, if I have to.”

Roy couldn’t argue with that logic.

After bringing Ed the sandwich he had stored in the fridge, Roy left him with the scattered case file while he threw together a makeshift bedroom in the den. It was just to the right of the front door, sunken, and offered a bit more privacy than the open great room. He laid hospital crisp sheets over the entire sofa, and piled on five or six of the blue cotton blankets. He brought down the bag of clothes Havoc and Breda had pilfered from the clothing supplies. Several sets of everything, all in the same muted black. Roy was not going to admit that, to make sure they were picking the correct sizes, they had referenced Fuery and sized down. Nope. He would keep that all to himself.

He was just finishing when there was a creak behind him. He turned to see Ed standing there in the doorway.

“I don’t mean to interrupt,” he wheezed, hand over his chest. “But I’d like to lay down.”

“Of course,” Roy said, a bit taken aback by Ed’s sudden change in demeanor. He gestured to the set-up, which consisted of one sofa made into a bed and the other a makeshift area to lay all of his things. “I hope this will be okay for now.”

Ed shrugged. “Or permanently.” Roy looked at him funny and Ed shrugged again. “Nothing wrong with sleeping on a couch. I can make a train bench comfy. I’m fine.” He shuffled past, arm barely grazing Roy’s side, before burrowing into the pile of blankets. He tucked his legs up and stilled, breathing labored. Roy was just turning to leave when a soft ‘hey’ stopped him. He turned back to see Ed looking at him.

“Do you remember the evening before everything went to shit?” Ed asked, as if Roy was the one with amnesia.

The older alchemist nodded, his heart picking up just a tick. “I do.”

It was late and Roy had shown up at Ed’s door in civilian clothes. Ed had been irritated, but not because of the hour. “Did Hawkeye send you to spy on me?” he griped, distrustful, but let Roy in anyway.

He was bedraggled and did very much look sick, waving off Roy’s concern, just a simple cold. He admired Ed's lips curved over a mug of tea. When Roy asked if Al knew he was back in Central, Ed answered no. Roy was concerned and asked why, but Ed had just looked at him with those simmering eyes and asked if Roy had missed him, and that was all it took. Because Roy _had_ missed him. Those piercing eyes and mismatched steps and sharp mind, sharper than any other he’d come across.

“Will we get to have that back?” Ed asked, voice hushed, as if he were scared to be asking.

“Did we ever give it up?”

A corner of Ed’s mouth twitched up. “No. I guess we didn’t.”

Roy crossed his arms and leaned against the door frame. “Can you believe Havoc used to be even _worse_ with women?”

Ed looked confused at the topic change but intrigued. He rolled his body a bit to get a better look at the colonel. “How?”

“He did this _thing_ ,” Roy said, waving his hand at the word, “where he would hit on women while they were at work. I had no idea he did this until I was with him while he chatted up a sales clerk for a full twenty painful minutes, who then turned him down for a date. He couldn’t figure out why this always happened.” Ed looked confused. “He essentially cornered these women in an environment they couldn’t leave and mistook their forced kindness as romantic interest. I made sure he never did that again,” Roy elaborated.

Ed was looking at him hard, Roy knew this even though he wasn’t looking back.

Roy closed his eyes as he sighed. “This is not an ideal scenario,” he said, slowly opening his eyes, still not looking up from the floor. “I do not intend to corner you with this, in my own home, when you’ve just been released from the hospital, when you’re on painkillers, when your brother is still missing.”

Ed snorted. “Just so we’re clear,” he said, rolling back over onto his side, blond hair cascading over the visible half of his face. “I’m never someone I don’t want to be, and I never do something I don’t want to do.” And Roy knew what he meant, saw past that military choke chain, because here they weren’t military, here they were equal. Maybe a little unequal in Ed’s favor, as he held an unfair amount of power over Roy and it was only a matter of time before he fully realized it.

Roy hoped they could keep it together for two months. It would be excruciatingly awkward if not impossible to give Ed back if everything went to hell halfway through. At least they would only have to stumble through seven more months of Ed’s enlistment, if he could even return to duty after this. Perhaps it would end Ed’s military career and be a blessing in disguise.

“And thank you, by the way,” Ed said, words quiet and rushed, snapping Roy out of his momentary lapse in thought. He must have looked confused, trying to grasp at what exactly Ed was thanking him for, because Ed cleared his throat and continued. “For, you know. Saving my life.” He brushed the hair away from his face so their eyes could lock, and then he looked away again. “Lin, she said I probably would have been too far gone by the time an ambulance got there. She tries to scare me into staying out of trouble, though, but…yeah. Thank you.” Even in the low light of the curtain covered windows, Roy could see how dark his cheeks were.

Roy nodded, feeling the vice like grip of anxiety clamp down onto his chest. He knew this. He had seen Ed going dusky right before his eyes, felt him slipping away, felt like it had all been over after the first failed shock. He didn’t want to think about it. He had purposefully not been thinking about it.

He quickly turned away, taking a deep breath and calming himself, feeling those eyes on his back. “Get some rest, Edward.”


	3. Chapter 3

The first night went without a hitch, aside from the fact that Roy couldn’t fall asleep to save his life. He crept down the stairs at least half a dozen times to make sure Ed was still breathing. During the first two checks he nearly took a shot of adrenaline when he couldn’t immediately see Ed’s chest moving, only to realize how heavily the he slept: like a damn rock. Some minutes his chest only rose a few times, which Roy found incredibly impressive considering how sick he still was. Roy surrendered to his restless state at six in the morning and rose.

The entire first day was even more uneventful. Hawkeye called to let Roy know Hughes would be facilitating a pick up for her the next day. It was difficult for him to leave Ed's side, so Roy resigned himself to setting up camp in the den and doing his paperwork across from the couch where Ed slept. He kept vigil during Ed's dose of IV antibiotics and followed it with a breathing treatment, neither of which Ed so much as twitched over.

The doctor warned Roy that the move would exhaust Ed, who still spent quite a bit of time sleeping anyway, so Roy wasn't surprised when Ed didn't stir until noon. What did surprise him was Ed joining him in the kitchen for lunch. He plopped himself at his favorite spot at the breakfast bar while Roy had his back turned, and the other alchemist nearly jumped out of his skin when he realized he had company. Ed had laid his head on the counter, golden hair spilling across the white granite, and immediately dozed off, much to Roy's amusement and adoration. He wouldn’t be surprised if Ed had never actually woken and instinctively slept walked to the smell of food. A full plate under Ed's nose was enough to rouse him until he finished it, but he still nearly fell asleep fork-in-hand and required assistance getting back to bed. He didn't wake again for the rest of the night.

Roy only got up to check on him three times. It was an improvement.

The next morning he was able to extract himself from a view of Edward and sat on his usual sofa in the great room as he flicked through a report, but he found himself too used to the quiet again. He had lived nearly half his life alone and it would take more than two days of Ed to change his default setting.

“So I have to ask-” a voice suddenly carried out over the great room.

Roy startled and looked up in exasperation. “Can you please stop doing that?”

"Doing what?"

"Coming out of nowhere."

Ed, who was remarkably alert for someone who had hardly breathed the day before, threw his hands in the air and glared. “You're jumpy as fuck. What am I supposed to do?”

The colonel regarded him with a furrowed brow and a shake of his head. “I am not used to another presence in my home.”

Ed’s annoyance was replaced with surprise, head cocked to the side and eyebrows raised. “Really? Roy _Mustang_ has never brought someone home?”

“I have never brought anyone back here,” Roy confirmed icily before turning back to the report.

“Huh. Really.” There was a pause. "Can’t say I expected that.”

Roy wondered why the two subordinates closest to him were out to prod at him for his promiscuity like they were his parents. He didn’t bother looking up. “You had a question?”

“Uh…why _does_ his room have two doors?”

Roy looked up from his papers. Oh boy. “That was an unfortunate incident,” he started and set the report down. He looked over to Ed, who still stood in the threshold and looked back at him expectantly. “I began dabbling in alchemy when I was ten. My first attempt didn't go smoothly,” he admitted.

The blond scoffed. “In the hallway of your own home? Even Al and I had enough sense to stay out of sight.” Rather than step over Roy’s legs, Ed walked behind the couch to have a seat at the opposite end. Nosy brat was probably going to try to dig into his paper work.

“For the record, I was in hall _closet_ ,” Roy said and he consolidated his pile of papers out of Ed’s reach, not missing the slight jutting of Ed’s bottom lip. “The reaction trailed through the floor, across the hall, and into the wall. The hole was impressive," Roy mused as Ed listened to his failure in apparent delight. "So after he finished tearing me a new one, Max decided instead of spending money we didn’t really have to fix an issue that was inconvenient but not a necessity, he would just put in a new door. There were a few left in the cellar from when our parents built the place.”

Ed smiled, and his eyes tried to but there was sadness. “When Al and I were three and four, we insisted on having separate rooms. Trying to act all grown up and tough. Our closets shared a wall though, and we secretly transmuted a small passageway between them. We kept sleeping in the same bed for over a month.” He paused and the smile fell. “We started again after Mom died. But it’s those things that make me miss home.”

The corner of Roy’s mouth tilted up because Ed was right. And it was those things that kept him in this house, even if he wished more often than not that he could just up and leave and never come back. “Even so. A home can be a heavy burden.”

Ed snorted. “Don’t I know it.”

Roy felt his heart twinge, his brain catching up a little too late. Oh. That’s right. He and Al had burned their home to the ground. Ed of all people, stronger than Roy himself, _would_ know.

They sat in a marginally awkward silence, Roy unsure of how to proceed without making things even worse, when Ed sucked in a breath and winced, placing a hand over his chest. Roy went to stand. “You need your pain meds.”

“I need to eat,” Ed whispered, wincing again. “Or that shit will never settle.”

“What would you like? Bacon? Pancakes?” Ed’s eyes widened at the mention of the ‘p’ word and Roy grinned. “Pancakes it is.”

While Roy made breakfast, Ed asked more simple questions. What day it was. “Wednesday. You were out for a day.” If anything had happened. “Nothing to my knowledge. Hughes will be by today.” How Roy learned to cook. “Cook books older than the both of us combined.” Roy was concentrated on his task and Edward provided the background noise his radio usually did. The blond dug into his food as if he hadn’t eaten in a week; Ed could easily eat in a day what many would in a week, so technically, it wasn’t a bad analogy. Roy even sacrificed half of his own plate to the cause without hesitation.

After breakfast found the two alchemists in the quiet of the front room. Hooking a conscious Ed up to his IV antibiotic was a bit of an ordeal, leaving him shaken and exhausted. Despite his lack of trust for anyone wielding a needle, he still curled up next to Roy with his head in the colonel’s lap while he dozed off the initial effects of his pain meds. Roy had to fight the urge to trace Ed’s features with his fingers, something he’d longed to do for ages, and instead settled for carding his fingers through blond hair. It was loose and silky and every now and then he was able to sneak his fingers to Ed’s scalp, at which the teen sigh and shift into the touch. Roy wasn’t sure who it was more soothing for and he would have been content to do it for the rest of the day, but a knock at the door brought him back to reality. Roy untangled himself as gently as he could and prayed that maybe for once Hughes wasn’t being his nosy self and trying to peer through the filtered glass.

But as he hit the threshold between the den and the foyer, the front door was opening because Hughes had no fucking boundaries, and he most definitely saw Roy coming out of there looking disheveled.

Hughes paused in the open doorway. He was bundled up against the cold, messenger bag slung over his shoulder, grin slowly spreading across his face. “Well well well.”

“Please don’t,” Roy warned, face threatening. Unfortunately, Hughes knew him too well to be swayed.

“Roy-” he started.

“I was keeping an eye on his drip.”

Hughes shut the door and looked like he’d just won the lottery. He took a quick glance into the room and his grin widened even more, if possible. “Uh huh. That’s why there’s a big empty spot where someone was sitting, right?”

Roy looked over to see Maes was correct, and looked back at his maniacally grinning friend a little too guiltily. Dammit. “I was comforting him.”

“And I’m sure you were doing a fine job,” Hughes chuckled as he set his bag to the floor and removed his coat.

Roy rubbed a hand down his face and tried to bide time even though he knew he was fucked. Honesty was the best policy. He took a deep breath. “I’m not ready to discuss this.”

Hughes shook his head as he hung his coat and reclaimed his bag. “Oh Roy Boy.” Roy’s brows twitched at the nickname. “You know I won’t judge.”

Roy took another deep breath, looked to the ceiling and counted to ten. “ _Maes_ ,” he tried again, looking into the front room to make sure Ed was still asleep. His friend’s smile disappeared as he thankfully _finally_ got it. “I don’t know what this will become. _And I am not ready_ ,” he insisted, voice soft but serious.

“Well damn, Roy,” Hughes said quietly.

“So can we just please?” Roy asked, gesturing to the front room.

“Yeah, of course.”

While Hughes settled in on the sofa, Roy retrieved two drinks from the kitchen. Hughes smartly accepted his as if he knew Roy planned on dumping it on his head if he didn’t. “So how are you holding up? Sharing your space and all.”

Roy sat down next to him and took a sip, then gestured to his own ruffled appearance. “Exhausted.”

Maes nodded in understanding and set his drink down onto the side table. “It’s been time for a while. Frankly I’m just glad I didn’t have to force someone to stay here for your own good.”

Roy raised an eyebrow. “So you’re saying you would have let this happen, even if I’d had the sense to call you first?”

“Eh.” Maes tilted his head from side to side. “I’m not sure if Ed would have been my first pick, so I’ve got to hand it to the universe on this one.” Roy pressed his pint glass to his forehead and closed his eyes. “I still don’t understand your reasons.” Roy hadn’t offered much then, and still nothing now. “Not a single damn thing that happened was within your control and punishing yourself with loneliness for this long-”

“Maes.”

“Hang in there. It will get easier,” his friend encouraged and then lowered his voice. “Have you told him anything?”

Roy lowered his glass. “He actually, uh, went into his room on accident.” Hughes’s eye grew wide at his admission. Roy shrugged. “So we’ve jumped that hurdle, at least.”

“Ed knows how to kick things off with a bang.” A smirk started and Roy glared.

“Think wisely before you open your mouth again,” he warned.

“Right, right.” Hughes grabbed his bag from the floor and placed it on the coffee table.

Ed wandered in yawning, coughing into his elbow at the end of it.

“Is your drip finished?” Roy asked. Hughes perked up at the sight of Ed, that stupid grin returning. Roy should have known a stupid grin would be articulating a stupid response.

Ed stretched, back audibly popping. “Yes Dad.”

Hughes snorted. “Please spare me from your kinks.” Ed froze when he realized they weren't alone.

“Jesus Maes. Shut _up_ ,” Roy gritted between his teeth.

“Oh right. My bad,” Maes apologized innocently, as if it was completely within his right to forget one simple request in under a minute.

Ed was blushing as red as the time Roy had implied he’d known Ed grabbed Siren’s boobs. “Yeah, I’m out. Nice seeing you.”

“Oh come on, Ed,” Hughes tried, but Ed waved a hand over his shoulder as he disappeared back into the front room.

“Might as well do your breathing treatment while you’re in there,” Roy called. A moment later he could hear the nebulizer turn on. Roy turned to his friend and gave him a look of death. “Seriously?”

“I’m _sorry,”_ Hughes emphasized. “It’s not something I can just turn off, you know. Give me some time.”

“You’d better start making yourself useful or I’m going to burn your coat.”

Hughes laughed, albeit nervously, and began to unpack the contents of his messenger bag. The first thing he spread open was a map of the southern region, pointing to several dots leading down the page.

“Dublith yielded nothing. We sent Major Armstrong along with the team because he claimed to have some sort of understanding with the Curtises. Which was probably a good thing because otherwise I don’t think we would have gotten past the front door.” He lowered his voice. “Mrs. Curtis was in rough shape. Unable to travel, so I wouldn’t expect to hear from her. But we figured even if Al was hiding out there, they would have informed him of Ed’s condition. You know he would have come running.”

Roy hadn’t been expecting anything and wasn’t surprised. “Ed suggested he might be throwing an Al version of a temper tantrum, since Ed wouldn’t let him tag along.”

“Like running off to prove he’s able to take care of himself?” Hughes asked as he dug through his bag again.

“Something like that.”

Hughes paused in his search, letting out a soft ‘hm’. “I don’t know what to think of that.”

Roy nodded in understanding as Hughes produced a thick stack of papers. “Exactly what I said.”

They began to disperse the papers into neat piles around the map, Ed reappearing just a few minutes later. Roy could hear him coming and was beginning to learn that Ed was at his quietest when he first woke, and progressively got louder until he fell back into another nap coma. His breathing treatment couldn’t have been done yet, but Roy knew he was anxious and could finish it up later.

“Ed!” Hughes greeted, hand raised. “Glad you could join us again.”

Ed bristled and gave the lieutenant a flat look. “Please don’t talk to me.”

“Oh c’mon Ed.”

Ed tilted his head, looking past Hughes and right to Roy. The colonel motioned for him to sit. “He’s under strict orders to behave.”

Ed turned his distrustful eyes back to Maes. “Yeah we’ll see about that.” He took a seat at the sofa opposite of Roy and Hughes and started plucking random papers from the piles. Roy basked in knowing that Hughes hated his shit getting out of order and was probably having an internalized crisis. Ed looked over at Roy, smirk slowly spreading across his face as he flicked a page to the floor. Hughes made a pained sound and scrambled to grab it, knocking his head on the edge of the table with a curse. Roy had never wanted to kiss Edward Elric more in his life.

Roy scanned the table for the document he had been most interested in. “Where’s the-” he’d just started to ask, when Hughes dipped his hand in his bag and produced a protective plastic folder.

“We had it examined and, of course, found nothing. Not even a single finger print.”

Before Hughes could place it into Roy’s hand, Ed launched himself over the coffee table to get it. The papers in his hands were let loose with a flourish, whipping underneath the coffee table to Hughes’s dismay. When the colonel opened his mouth to protest he was met with intense eyes and a curled lip, the atmosphere changing whiplash quick. “He’s my fucking brother and I’m looking at it first, okay?” Ed growled, startling both of the older men.

Hughes let him have it with his hands up in surrender and Roy let it go without issue. He understood, at least to some extent. He was a minor when Max had died and the courts had wasted a month trying to find their mother before finally surrendering the files to him. It had been the longest month of his life and Max’s files hadn’t been nearly as important. Ed looked as if his own behavior had surprised him, like he hadn’t planned on expending that kind of energy on ferocity but couldn’t help himself. Roy knew he couldn’t when it came to Al.

Ed took a shaky breath as he sat back on the couch, trembling as he delved into the folder. The technicians filed the test results and other information before the letter, and while Roy couldn’t deny his curiosity at first, Ed was reading each page to its fullest and the colonel eventually turned his attention back to Hughes, who was practically cooing and apologizing to the papers he retrieved from the floor. Roy helped his friend rearrange them on the table, the both of them downing the rest of their drinks when finished. They drank for different reasons, but for the collective good. There were too many different neuroses in the same room to not dampen them with liquor.

“Uhhh,” Ed said loudly, garnering both men’s attention, who set their glasses down at the expression on his face. For the first time Ed looked nervous and Roy knew something was very, very wrong. His golden eyes flicked between the two older men. “This isn’t Al’s handwriting.”

Hughes pushed his glasses back up, brows furrowed. “What do you mean? We compared it to samples.”

Ed shook his head, pushed himself to his feet, and drug himself to the den. Roy could tell he was nearing the end of his energy cap. When Ed returned, his chest was heaving and breaths wheezing.

“You compared it to samples of how he wrote in the armor. _This_ is his handwriting,” Ed said, handing a folded piece a paper to Hughes and the folder with the letter to Roy. They accepted their offerings and held them side by side. Roy felt a chill go down his spine and Hughes tensed next to him.

Al’s former handwriting, though neat, was large and blocky, while his flesh handwriting was beautiful flowing script. Of course this was the handwriting Al would have. They had never known anything other than his armored writing, but how could they have not considered it from the start? Roy knew that if he was feeling like the biggest idiot, then Hughes must be feeling approximately a thousand times worse.

As if on cue, Hughes placed a hand over his face and whispered, "Oh hell."

“What does this mean?” Roy asked quietly as Ed slipped onto the couch beside him, accepting the blond’s weight as he was leaned into.

Roy didn’t have to look at Ed to know his shaking hands had become a full body tremor, the vibrations reverberating down to the core of his bones, but he looked over anyway. He didn’t like the fear in Ed’s eyes or the crack in his voice when he said, “I have no idea.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not too exciting, more angsty. You're welcome.

It took the higher ups in the investigations department 48 hours to make their decision regarding Ed’s find. Forty-eight fucking hours. Roy hoped it was the beginning of something good, a sign that a new plan was being developed.

Ed knew his brother had no good reason to return to his armored handwriting. He knew this, Roy knew this, Hughes knew this. But as it turned out, attempting to convince anyone else had been futile. Hughes was several cities away collecting a new member of Investigations and was due to be picked up by Roy the next morning. He would see what strings could be pulled from his current position, if any. Until then, all they had was the military’s written response.

 _A lack in concentration caused Alphonse Elric's former muscle memory to kick in_. They couldn’t quite well admit that Al had no true muscle memory to cause this, so it went undisputed.

 _A way for Alphonse Elric to get back at Edward Elric for leaving him behind_. But knowing how traumatic it had been from the time he’d been bound to the armor to the time he left it, none of them could believe it. Al would never do something so terribly damaging to his brother.

 _Alphonse Elric decided to put the armor back on_. Again, not easy to dispute, but Ed was seeing red and ready to rip someone’s throat out. It was fortunate they were reading the military’s response under Roy’s roof.

Ed shook and wheezed so badly while he ranted that Roy was sure he would run out of oxygen. His words were firey rage and biting sarcasm. That the military was so fucking concerned, right? To put all this effort in but the minute it looks like things are going cold, they aren’t willing to give any more. Too hesitant to start in a different direction, to admit there was anywhere else to go, somewhere that would eat up even more man power and resources over someone who clearly didn’t want to be found.

Roy tried to bring Ed down, but there was no right way to do it. Ed was white hot anger and molten gold, and the mere suggestion that he needed to breathe was enough to send him stomping up the stairs and to the guest room at an impressive pace, door slamming in his wake. At 17 Ed could still throw an impressive tantrum and Roy was starting to wonder if it was something inherent rather than a behavior he would outgrow. He decided it was as good a time as any to strip Edward’s temporary room of dirty linens and do some laundry.

When his brother died, Roy had been too young to drink. He also didn’t figure out where the traitor had hidden his booze until he was finally given Max’s last will and testament (in the safe, go fucking figure) so he’d had to find other ways to keep himself occupied. When his heart was too broken for alchemy, the subtle science of cleaning linens saved him. Laundry filled that need to be busy, to be useful. Roy had done mountains of it; all of his clothes, his brother’s clothes, whatever was left from their parents. Pillows, blankets, rugs, placemats. Nothing was off limits. He’d done laundry after basic training, after the alchemy exam, after every mission. Laundry held a special place in his heart and he’d been drinking too much this week anyway.

Roy couldn’t hear Ed destroying anything as he worked, so that was good, but the silence was almost more unsettling. It was nearly two hours before Ed decided Roy was fit for his presence again. The colonel had since moved on to paperwork, leaving it scattered across the coffee table while he took a break in the kitchen. The sound of Ed coming down the stairs was more than enough to tell Roy he hadn’t slept during the time he spent up there. Roy entered the great room with caution.

Ed sat couch and held report he swiped from the table. His gaze met Roy’s and he looked guilty enough that Roy was prepared to take it from him. But as he approached, the colonel noticed it was Ed’s own on his mission to Kadayr, and his heart dipped unpleasantly. Ed still had very little recollection of what had happened and this was the best way for him to find out.

So Roy didn’t say anything. Just sat down at the opposite side of the couch and stared at the coffee table.

Ed relaxed and flipped to the first page. “I remember being given this mission. It should have been easy. I thought for sure that the civilian report was crazy.”

Elbow to knee, Roy tucked a fist under his chin. “To be honest, that’s why I assigned it to you. I thought you’d be there and back without issue.”

Ed snorted. “So much for that.”

Roy tried not to acknowledge the shallow stab of guilt in his chest. Yeah, so much for that. Where could he have sent Ed that would have been worse? Even sending him to Briggs would have probably ended better. Roy let himself get lost in thought until suddenly Ed was looking at him expectantly, report in his lap. He’d made it halfway through before seeming to have had enough.

“Do you have my original? I think it might help.”

Pleasantly surprised by his request, Roy picked up a file folder from the floor, leafed through some tabs, and came out with a handwritten report. “I think only you can properly read it anyway.”

Ed gave him a mildly annoyed look but accepted the papers without complaint. He was quiet for several minutes as he read.

Ed’s own reports were typically outspoken and useless as they were, so before they were handed any higher, Falman would edit and Hawkeye would type. Ed had always been well aware of this practice, had even asked for old copies before. It was comforting to have these bits and pieces of memory come out. Edward remembered this had been one of those reports, that he was so eager to wash his hands of the whole thing that he'd mailed it ahead of his departure, and that had to count for something.

Roy inconspicuously watched Ed read, observing the flood of raw emotion that ran across his face. Roy knew exactly what would follow the look of awe and admiration though, and sure enough there was a gentle ebb into disbelief before Ed’s face fell into a terrible sadness.

Eventually Ed lowered the report and turned his wide golden eyes to Roy, telling the colonel a story he already knew. “It really sucks sometimes,” he said quietly. “I know you of all people are aware. But still.”

Ed’s eyes flickered and he was suddenly angry, glaring at the report in his lap. “These people were just trying to find a way to better support their community. They were submissive animals. They were _safe_.”

Roy gave him a pointed look. “You are defending a chimera that infected you with a disease that nearly killed you.”

Ed shrugged his shoulders with a look of disgust. “So fucking what? It’s not like wool from a regular sheep couldn’t have done the exact same thing.” It was useless to point out that Ed wouldn’t have been around the wool if it were from a regular sheep. The report crinkled in his flesh hand and he dropped the crumpled mess onto the coffee able as if it were trash. “You know how many of those chimeras I had to kill. For no fucking reason really, other than the person who made them wasn’t a high and mighty state alchemist doing it for the sake of the state.”

Ed’s words and agitation quieted when Roy slid closer to him on the couch. The blond sank back into the cushions, fists clenched in his lap. “They were _so_ careful when they made those chimeras. They had a limited number of animals to work with so each botched attempt equated loss.” Roy knew Ed had used those exact words when defending the village’s case, but it and more hadn’t been enough.

“They had to be in pain,” Roy murmured.

Ed fell quiet at that.

“At what point does their pain become less meaningful?”

Ed bowed his head and shrugged, but Roy knew his words had strung. “They’re animals. They’re lower on the food chain. We do what we must to survive. I wonder how many people are going to suffer now. Possibly die?”

“Three of those villagers tested positive for anthrax,” Roy reminded him. “Their disease was still incubating. You probably saved their lives.” He didn’t mention the debt those people would probably incur from treatment. He didn’t have to.

Ed’s jaw was clenched, bangs shadowing his face, but Roy saw the tear drops darkening spots on his sleeves. As shitty of a situation as it was, Roy was grateful Ed hadn’t, and hopefully never had to, go to war. It would not wear well on him.

Roy tentatively reached an arm out, wrapping it around Ed’s shoulders as Ed leaned into him. He breathed Ed in, pressing his lips to blond hair and then further down to Ed’s temple. Roy waited for the tension in Ed’s back to ebb, and when it did, moved his arm to touch Ed’s elbow. “Come on,” Roy coaxed gently. “It’s time for your meds.”

Ed looked like misery’s finest and the epitome of exhaustion but he accepted Roy’s arm without hesitation.

* * *

When amnesia meets sleeps disturbances, it can get ugly. It was one thing to be warned of it and another to experience it secondhand. Roy knew even if Ed’s details on the Kadayr mission were shot, his emotions weren’t, and they were eventually going to haunt him.

So yes, it was very different knowing it could happen and actually being ripped from sleep by a scream. Roy practically fell out of the bed when his legs tangled in the blankets, hauling them halfway down the hall before he finally shook his foot free.

When he reached the front room, Ed was half sitting and panting. He looked up at Roy, eyes wide and panicked. He shook his head. “Fucking – just, fuck,” he wheezed, covering his face with his hand. He made no movements other than his labored breathing.

“Ed?” Roy tried, voice still heavy with sleep despite the adrenaline that hummed under his skin.

“I’m sorry,” Ed rasped from behind his hand. “Didn’t mean to wake you.”

“Are you okay?”

The blond scrubbed at his face for a moment and then let his hand fall to his lap. Even in the dim light from streetlamps outside and bangs shadowing what little of Ed’s face there was to see, Roy could tell he was embarrassed. “Fine. Dandy. You can go now.”

“Ed.”

“I’m _fine_ ,” he gritted, but Roy heard his breath hitch, saw his shoulders shake, knew what it was like. He crept into the room, sitting gently at the other end of the couch near Ed’s feet. Ed didn’t take happily to the gesture and glared. “How many times do I have to say it?” he snapped.

“The doctor warned your amnesia might cause this.”

Ed rolled his eyes to the ceiling. “That’s very comforting Mustang, thank you.”

Roy ignored the bite in his tone. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Ed’s face was still tilted toward the ceiling when he closed his eyes. “No.”

“Do you want me to leave?”

“I don’t care.”

Roy sighed and decided to concede defeat early. It was late, he was tired, he did not feel like getting into it with Ed in the middle of the night, whatever time it was. He rose and went to the great room, laying down on the sofa and yanking a blanket over himself because fuck it, there was no way he would be falling back to sleep if he was separated from Ed by an entire floor. His nerves were shot.

Several minutes passed with only the ticking of the grandfather clock, and when it finally chimed, Roy groaned. Three in the morning. He wasn’t looking forward to another night of shit sleep, but here he was. He’d signed up for it.

He heard a creak and looked up to the foyer. Ed was standing in the threshold, looking lost.

Roy sighed, pulled back the blanket, and patted the portion of the couch in front of him.

Ed shuffled in with his eyes downcast, accepting the spot and pressing his back to Roy’s chest. He tucked his head underneath Roy’s chin as Roy pulled the blanket over them both. They laid that way for a while and Ed’s tremors eventually calmed. The blond took a deep breath like he was going to say something, then let it out quickly as if he thought better of it. This happened a few times before Roy gently wrapped his arm over and around Ed’s waist, pulling him just a bit closer, offering what little comfort he could. Ed nudged his legs closer to Roy’s and Roy hooked his ankle over them. Ed’s automail was cold and sharp against his flesh, but he didn’t mind.

Roy wasn’t expecting anything with Ed’s next inhale, especially not a confession of emotion that Ed usually firmly denied. “I’m, um. I’m starting to get scared.” Ed took another shaky breath. “And I can’t do anything about it.”

Roy couldn’t imagine what it was like for Ed. He immediately thought of his brother and how they hadn’t let him past the perimeter to help look for him. They hadn’t let him in the ambulance. That hadn’t let him visit until after surgery and Max was so doped up on medication that there was almost none of him left. The situations were different but it was as close as he could get to understanding. He still couldn’t think of anything to say because really, nothing could make it better.

Ed, who seemed to somehow possess the ability to read minds despite his lack of social grace, made his request quietly, as if he thought he would scare Roy away. “Tell me about your brother.”

Roy hesitated and his heart rate picked up. “Are you sure you want to go down that rabbit hole, Ed?” he asked softly. “I don’t think this is the kind of story you need right now.”

Ed had to feel Roy’s heart against his back. He moved his hand to his waist, finding Roy’s and lacing their fingers together. “Please,” Ed coaxed, giving his hand a squeeze.

Roy felt as if he were dancing at the edge of a diving board. It’s going to happen, he’d told himself, sooner or later. And there’s only one way down. It was the dive in that was always the scariest part.

“He was strict - homework to be done right after school, no junk food, made me go to church every Sunday. I would protest and be a general pain in the ass, but he never wavered. He always told me someday I would see why.” The words tumbled from his mouth and he wasn’t even sure if this was what Ed wanted but it was all he had.

“Was he like, your guardian?”

Roy didn’t realize his arm over Ed’s waist had gone rigid until Ed shifted in discomfort. The familiar ache in his chest was already more than happy to take control, just as he’d let it so many times before. Roy loosened his grip, took a deep breath, and tried to relax. He closed his eyes and focused on the warmth of Ed’s body, the silk of blond hair tucked close to his neck, the smell of soap and oil. “He took custody of me when I was nine. To just turn eighteen and suddenly be responsible for your not-even-double-digit sibling must have been frightening. But he never let me see it, never let me worry. Even when I did stupid shit, like putting a giant hole in the wall – he took it all in stride.”

“Why did he take custody?”

“Our father died in an accident and our mother only had children to please him. She offered Max everything – the house, everything – if he would take me. We never saw or heard from her again.”

“How did he die?”

Roy felt himself involuntarily tense again. Ah, there it was. Roy had been waiting for this question ever since Ed had laid eyes on his brother’s photo and walked into his room, but it didn’t make it any easier.

Even laying down he knew Ed’s shoulders were hunched as if he wanted to disappear. “Sorry. You don’t have to say.”

It wasn’t the first time Ed had offered him the same way out but Roy wasn’t particularly interested in taking it this time. He shook his head and let his senses of Ed ground him again. He still had to fight the vice on his chest and the lump in his throat, not that warding them off made his voice sound any less broken. “He was an investigator of building fires. Dangerous work.” He stopped to collect himself. He felt the rise and fall of Ed’s ribs, counted each breath and zoned in on the faint rasp of them. “He didn’t have to go into that building. He didn’t have to, but he wanted to, because there were the remains of a little girl somewhere inside and he was set on finding her and proving she had died before the fire.”

Ed’s jaw clenched. “The building fell.”

Roy nodded. “He made it a couple of days. But he developed what they call crush syndrome, and there was nothing they could do. His kidneys failed. Game over.” The only other people he had divulged this sob story to were Hughes and Hawkeye. It had been accomplished through several rounds of alcohol and a definite lack of cuddling, and Roy marveled at how easily the words flowed now. “He did find her though. When they were digging through the wreck they found his jacket covering her body. He’d been on his way out of there when it fell.” Roy took a deep breath and tried to smile. “So close.”

“Did anything become of the case?”

“His jacket protected evidence. The girl’s father would have been found guilty of first degree murder, but he ran before they could arrest him.” The disappointment and rage sparked itself in Roy’s belly, letting him know it was still there and probably always would be.

“How old were you?”

“Seventeen.”

“Straight into the military you went.”

“I was the little brother they go ahold of.” Roy couldn’t see but he knew the blond was anguished over these words, facial expressions reverberating through his body. “Have you considered it, Ed? Why you haven’t been bombarded with re-enlistment? Why they’ve put so much effort into looking for Al?”

“I tried not to.” At first Ed tried to burrow himself further into the cushions, but instead settled for jamming his automail leg between Roy’s to get them that much closer. It was by no means a comfortable gesture, but Roy wasn’t going to let that take this moment from them. “I guess it was naïve to think that they would just accept the first no and move on. But I never dreamed that they could dig their claws into Al, so I just didn’t. Didn’t worry.

“But yeah. Their motives were pretty fucking obvious, but I wasn’t gonna call them on it. They’re the only ones able to do anything right now.”

They laid through another silence. Roy couldn’t physically feel Ed’s heart the way he knew the younger alchemist could feel his, and so his fingers sought the pulse point at Ed’s wrist. It was fast, faster than it should have been even with sick lungs, and Ed’s breathing quickened as if he knew he’d been found out. He took his pre-question breath and held it an awfully long time. Roy re-laced their fingers and pressed his face into the blond fluff in front of him.

“Did losing them ever stop hurting?” Ed finally asked.

Roy knew he meant all of them, including the mother that left him behind. He shook his head. “No. Never.” A shiver ran through Ed and he shifted his unsettled muscles. Roy adjusted his hold on Ed’s hand, running his thumb over the teen’s knuckles, feeling the fine lines of the scars crisscrossing them. “But it gets easier. For years, it’s the first thing you think about, every day. And you think it’s never going to end. But one day you wake up, and it’s the second thing. And then the third. And then some days you may not think about it at all. But it will never stop.”

“I was afraid of that.”

“But is that really so bad?” Roy whispered. “Where there is grief, there is love.”

Ed let out a breathy little laugh that managed to pull a smile from Roy, even if he was ten seconds out from baring a part of his soul. “You’re corny as fuck, Mustang.” Roy wanted to tell Ed to blame his brother’s books but Ed didn’t give him the time. He brought their laced hands up close to his face so Roy could feel Ed’s breath across his knuckles. “But you’re not wrong.”


	5. Chapter 5

Roy startled awake when he felt a sudden, jerking movement. His neck and the underside of his chin were wet and there was a heavy weight settling itself around him. His vision cleared enough to allow him to make sense of everything. He was on the couch in the great room with Ed tucked into his side, blanket having slipped off in the night and pooled on the floor. The early morning hours came flooding back and he realized they had fallen asleep. Ed had turned in his sleep, face tucked up against Roy’s chest and flesh leg hooked over both of Roy’s.

The sky had barely started to become light and he guessed it to be around seven in the morning.

He was trying to make sense of his damp neck and chin when Ed sneezed again, this time directed right into Roy’s shirt, which was unfortunate but still better than his face. The colonel winced while he wiped at the spray that covered his neck. The things he put up with for Edward Elric.

As with most things Edward did, he was beautiful while he slept. All of Ed’s expressions had their own (sometimes terrifying) artistry, but there was something about the rarity of seeing him completely vulnerable that made Roy just take in the moment any time he had a chance. Even the shit lighting couldn’t take away from it and Roy would have been happy to look at him for just awhile longer, but his back was protesting having slept on the couch and his leg reminded him that the harsh edges of the automail could only be ignored for so long.

Leaning his head down close to Ed’s ear, Roy whispered his name. Ed whined, shifting around a bit before mumbling 'get off'.

“I would love to move but you’re heavy.”

Ed stirred at the rumble in Roy’s chest, eyelashes fluttering, awkwardly propping himself up on the automail arm sandwiched between them so he could rub his eyes with his flesh hand. His sleepy eyes blinked and focused.  "Good morning, sunshine," Roy whispered huskily, their faces inches apart. A startled yelp rang out before a fist connected with Roy’s jaw.

His sleep addled brain finally caught up and gave two important pieces of information. One, it wasn’t uncommon for Ed to attack first and ask questions later. And two, even a sick person's fist in your face hurts like hell.

Ed snapped out of it immediately and seemed embarrassed, scrambling to the kitchen and filling a towel with ice for Roy’s aching jaw. The colonel accepted it without a word, preoccupied with wondering just how big of an idiot he could be. He wasn’t sure if he should start with ‘I’m sorry’ or ‘this was my fault’ but the punch had hurt a great deal and he was still trying to process it. Ed was agitated, probably itching to throw his two cents in on Roy’s boneheaded move, but after a few minutes of painful silence the blond slipped away to the front room. When Roy passed by a little later to dump the melting ice in the kitchen sink, he saw Ed had covered the doorway to the front room with an extra sheet.

“That had better not be alchemically attached to my wall,” he grumbled through the fabric, but there was no answer. Even if Ed had, it was an empty threat, and they both knew it. Roy climbed the stairs and went to his bathroom, starting the sink and letting the water warm while he studied his reflection and the circles under his eyes. He turned his head to the side and saw that the angle of his jaw had already begun to darken. Edward was not doing him any favors but frankly, the punch was his own damn fault. His conceited side was happy to see it was in a place where the swelling wouldn’t show too badly, and told him he should just be grateful it hadn’t been the automail.

Showered and shaven, Roy walked down the upstairs hall, past the guest bathroom with its shower running, and down the stairs. In the front room Ed had removed the sheet from the doorway; it was neatly folded and there were no signs of it having been melded to his wall.

Roy went to the kitchen and started some coffee, leaning back on the island as it brewed. He felt a twinge of nerves when Ed slumped in a few minutes later and took his seat at the bar right across from him, but didn’t look up. Roy blinked. He had expected a more typical Edward reaction, something along the lines of ‘you deserved it’ and ‘don’t fucking do that ever again’, and he was more than ready to concede to those words. Roy noticed that even though he’d heard the shower running, Ed’s hair wasn’t wet. Ed looked up just a fraction, staring broodingly at the counter, and Roy softened up when he realized that Ed wasn’t angry. He felt _bad_ for what he’d done.

Roy cocked his head to the side and cleared his throat. Ed flinched and looked up, eyes hard and brows knit in a frown, a look of defense. “Do you ever wash your hair?”

Ed was surprised, as if he hadn’t expected Roy to speak to him, and definitely not about his hair of all things. He then eyed the colonel thoughtfully, the same way he looked at equations, like he saw a puzzle in the other alchemist. “Honestly, no? Not hardly ever. Alchemy is easier.”

“You don’t do that every day, though.”

Ed shrugged. “It’s a waste of time. Hair can stay clean for a while if you let it do its thing,” he explained, fiddling with the end of his braid, golden eyes cutting to Roy when the colonel raised an eyebrow. “Please don’t look at me like that. You city people and washing your hair every day. I’ll never understand it.” He let go of his braid, tossed his bangs, and winked. “Besides, it apparently comes in handy. Be fucking grateful.”

Roy’s eyebrows rose at the blatant flirt. He leaned forward onto the counter across from Ed and tried not to laugh, mostly failing. Ed looked like he was about to pout so Roy reached over and threaded his fingers through blond bangs, tucking them behind Ed’s ear knowing full well they wouldn’t stay, just using the excuse to touch him. He trailed his fingers down the curve of Ed’s jaw, playing it off as simply taking his hand back, but Ed caught his wrist and held it close. He was still looking at Roy like he was something that needed further evaluation and Roy kind of liked it.

“I woke you in the middle of the night, got shitty at you when you just wanted to help, and you still let me in. I badger you to tell me shit I have no business knowing, punched you, and you _still_ let me in.”

Roy smirked. “You also sneezed on me.”

Ed’s eyes widened and he let go of his wrist. “Sorry,” he said, cheeks dusting pink before he buried his face in his hands. “Me two years ago would have been ecstatic to have punched you in the face. But now I just feel like shit.”

Roy shrugged, leaning on his elbows. “I should have known better than to do what I did.”

Ed shook his head and dropped his hands into his lap. “You just…put up with a lot, with me being here all the time. Equivalency and all, I don’t know how I’m going to pay you back for all of this.”

“I’m not doing this for a return,” Roy said as he leaned back, feeling slightly hurt at the insinuation.

“I _know_ that,” Ed huffed as he waved his hand in annoyance. “But it’s how I fucking operate, okay?”

For someone who knew the truth of equivalency, Ed was still dead set on living his life in calculated balance. Old habits die hard. But just the thought of Ed doing absolutely anything but breathing to deserve his place in Roy’s home felt wrong.

Roy poured two mugs of coffee and offered one of them to Ed. “Kick anthrax’s ass. Because if you can’t do that, all of this will have been for nothing. And you can’t do that to me. Deal?”

Ed’s cheeks flushed an even deeper shade and he looked unconvinced, accepting the mug without meeting Roy’s eyes. But he still agreed with an almost whispered ‘deal’.

Roy took a sip from his mug. “We’re picking Hughes up at the train station in an hour.”

Ed looked up at him in disbelief. “When did he even leave?”

“Two days ago. He’s overseeing the travel of a new member of Investigations.”

“They sure must be something to need a babysitter and a welcome committee,” Ed griped from behind his coffee mug.

Roy wasn't about to tell Ed that the work of this major was probably going to be their last chance to keep the military interested in Al's case. Only-living-relative of Edward Elric or not, there was only so much the military would be willing to do for him. They had their hands full with the heaping mess the government was still in from the days of Fuhrer King Bradley, and really had already gone above and beyond for Al, ill intentions be damned. Personal feelings aside, Roy couldn't blame them.

Hawkeye still graciously allowed Roy to borrow Havoc for his driving expertise. The lieutenant arrived right as Roy was locking the front door, Ed already starting down the front path and managing it leagues better than he had just days previous. Roy should have known by then that whenever he started to feel optimistic was when something heavy would drop in to remind him that Ed was walking a fine line. He thought it happened during the drive when Ed had gone to lean between the two front seats, as he'd done several times by then to put his two cents into Roy and Havoc's conversation. But then the unpredictably stupid quick stop on the seat belt hit him hard and fast and Ed had come out screaming through gritted teeth. No one said a word for the rest of the drive.

It probably would have been the only major hiccup of the day if Roy had stuck to his original plan of leaving Ed in the car while he collected Hughes and his associate, but of course Ed had other ideas. Roy knew Havoc's cigarette smoke wasn't going to go leaking into the vehicle the way Ed claimed it would but it was early and the colonel decided the sooner in the day he started to pick his battles, the better.

Central City Station at nine in the morning was peaceful and just starting to wake up. He and Ed were walking through the tiled lobby, Roy trailing far enough behind that they didn’t even look like they were there together. Light filtered through the skylights in the roof and whenever Ed passed through a patch of it he seemed to glow. Being able to watch him may have been the reason Roy was lagging so far behind. Ed paused in a puddle of sunshine, checking over his shoulder to make sure Roy was still behind him, looking ethereal. Roy longed to frame that scene.

Ed gave him a cocky grin. “Can’t keep up old man?” he jabbed, effectively ruining the moment before he continued walking. Roy let out a two-breathed chuckle, mostly at himself for allowing Ed to have moments to ruin. That’s what he got for comparing a temperamental teenager to anything other worldly.

They were passing by the ticket booths when a bright voice rang out above the bustle of the station. “Oh, there you are.”

Ed froze as if he just knew those words were meant for him, and slowly looked in the direction they came from. Roy stopped several paces behind and followed Ed’s gaze of recognition to a ticket booth to their left, and the attendant inside. She looked barely twenty, with red hair and bright blue eyes, and smiled at Ed from across the walkway. “I thought I saw your brother some time ago, but I figured it couldn’t have been because you weren’t with him.”

Ed was immediately in motion with Roy fast behind him, one blurred movement and suddenly they were at the counter and Ed seemed to be ready to jump over it, Roy’s hand on his shoulder the only thing holding him back. It was this animalistic drive that could surpass Ed's already high pain threshold that was so mesmerizing to Roy. He was a completely different person than he'd been no more than twenty minutes before. The girl didn’t look phased and never dropped her smile, so Roy assumed she was familiar enough with Ed's particular brand of enthusiasm. She didn’t even flinch when Ed’s automail screeched against the metal counter as he scrabbled for a grip.

“How long ago?” Ed wheezed, eyes wide. “How long ago did you see him?”

“Oh, I’d say a few weeks ago.”

Ed stopped trying to heave himself onto the counter and Roy let go of his shoulder. Ed’s hands were splayed over the steel surface, automail rattling against it as he shook. “What was he wearing?”

She looked at him with a suspicious smile. “Is this a trick question?”

Ed’s expression began to unfold into something tragic and he shook his head. “No,” he whispered.

“Why, then, the suit of armor he always wears.”

Roy felt ice creep into his veins. Ed inhaled sharply and his breathing began to rapidly increase. He took a shaky step backward and the ticket attendant shot Roy a look of concern. The colonel went to offer his hand to Ed but the blond took several more steps backward, fighting to keep his balance. His eyes were wild and unfocused. “Do you think this will heat the case back up?” he rasped.

And then he went down.

* * *

Havoc told Roy they were going to be the death of him. Roy told Havoc that at least Ed hadn't stopped breathing this time, which did not help. He tossed Roy the keys, told him to keep the car, and walked out the double doors of the hospital. He did not come back.

Edward was going to be fine. Over exertion, they said. It would be relatively easy for him to hyperventilate for some time.

Keep the field trips and excitement to a minimum.

They were orders Roy wanted to laugh at. It seemed every stone they managed to turn about Al sent Ed into a frenzy, so ‘keeping excitement to a minimum’ was surely a joke. He managed to voice his concern politely though, and Dr. Gray didn’t hesitate to write him a script for an anti-anxiety drug. He also gave Roy a small black case full of sealed syringes and two bottles of clear fluid. “For emergencies only. Heavy sedation. He cannot have more than one dose a day. It can be given through the port. I would be leery of giving it to him after the sedative, so like I said, emergencies.”

When Ed arrived at the hospital, the doctor had been concerned about his low respiration rate and decided to put him under sedation and hook him up to a ventilator to give his lungs a break. Other than the collapse and subsequent issues, he said Ed was looking as well as he would expect and he would probably be ready to go home by evening.

At least this room had a phone. After catching Hawkeye up to speed on Ed’s condition (during which she told him he couldn't have Havoc back), Roy bounced back and forth between keeping a watchful eye on him and quick calls from Hughes. The new major was settling in and they were getting everything together for him. After a few hours Hughes called again to request files that Roy knew were on his coffee table at home. It had been four hours since Ed had was sedated with no change, and so Roy felt comfortable enough leaving to retrieve them. Hughes promised to meet him at the hospital in an hour.

When Roy returned with barely a minute to spare, Ed was awake, breathing on his own, and absolutely livid.

“I _hate_ you,” he seethed from the bed as soon as Roy was through the door.

"I see you’re feeling better,” Roy remarked as he set the file folder on the table. He didn’t realize he was smiling until Ed’s glare turned dagger sharp and he looked about two seconds away from biting Roy’s head off. It was a relieved smile, the colonel would have sworn, but Ed never gave him the time when he needed it.

"It was fucking _hell_ having that tube in my throat, but I'm fine now, thank you," Ed spat. “And _you_ let them do it to me. I’ll stick one down yours in your sleep.” He jabbed a finger in the direction of Roy’s throat to make his point.

Hughes appeared in the doorway with a wave, clapping his free hand on Roy’s shoulder, right on time as always. “Ed! Oh good, off the vent I see! I should know to leave it to you to keep things interesting!” he greeted.

Ed wasn’t even phased by his appearance. “Yeah you’re fucking welcome,” he grumbled, shrinking back against the headboard.

Maes turned to properly greet Roy and whistled, grabbing and angling Roy’s chin to get a good look at the mark. “I can only assume you deserved it,” Maes said, patting the bruise as if bruises weren’t a source of pain. Roy gave his friend the look of death and he pushed his hand away. Ed’s expression darkened dangerously and Roy was more than happy to linger near the doorway and let Hughes take the only chair. The lieutenant colonel pulled it over to Ed’s bedside and took a seat.

“Alright. The usual questions,” Hughes started, pulling a pad and pen from his pocket. “How do you know the young woman at the station?”

The tension left Ed and he slouched, staring at the bed sheets. “That was Louise. We’ve bought tickets from her for years. Al thought she was cute.” He added the last part wistfully, a corner of his mouth tilting up.

“She confirmed it was a suit of armor that looked just like Al’s.” Ed’s face became hard. Hughes rubbed the back of his neck and sighed, because he knew it sucked, this kind of stuff always did. The words even seemed like they pained him to ask. “I know we all want to think Al wouldn’t have put the armor on. But did he have the opportunity?”

“We had a replica,” Ed said, a sudden answer that seemed to startle himself. He looked between Roy and Hughes with wide, confused eyes. “We made a replica. I think- I think it was in the basement,” he added shakily.

“You’ve never mentioned that before,” Roy murmured from the doorway.

Ed looked a little dazed and shook his head. “I just remembered.”

Hughes had already dialed a number into the phone on the bedside table and was waiting on the ring. “Hi! Lieutenant Colonel Maes Hughes again.” He paused and suddenly had that look he got any time someone mentioned (or let him mention) Elysia. “Oh yes she is doing just fantastic thank you for asking!” he gushed. Ed stared at Hughes like he smelled something rotten and Roy asked the ceiling for patience. “I was wondering if you could tell me if there is a suit of armor anywhere in the home? Quite possibly the basement but perhaps elsewhere.”

“Aren’t Winry and Aunt Pinako in Rush Valley? Who the hell are you talking to?” Ed demanded, making a grab at the phone.

Hughes leaned back in his chair and waved Ed off, listening closely to the ear piece. Ed looked past him to Roy, annoyed as he threw his hands up in what-the-fuck kind of exasperation.

Roy shrugged. “They said he was a childhood friend of yours. Starts with a P I think?”

Ed scoffed. “Pitt? Fucking really?” he grouched. “He _would_ ask about Elysia, fucking suckup.”

If Hughes heard him he didn’t react. They waited a few minutes before he perked up at a voice on the other line. He nodded. “Perfect. Thank you.” He paused and got that stupid look on his face again. “I will be sure to do that absolutely!” he gushed for a second time, and Ed let out a literal growl as he glared threateningly at the lieutenant. Hughes hastily hung up and adjusted his glasses. “Your replica is missing. I think we’ve been asking train stations for the wrong person.”

Ed was staring at the sheets again, gripping them so hard his knuckles were white. “Why would your brother put on the armor again?” Hughes asked, causing the blond to flinch. Ed was still sensitive to this thought, a knee-jerk reaction compared to his near violent opposition to the military’s accusation the day before, but it still stung. Ed knew his brother better than anyone, and even he couldn’t think of a single reason why Al would do it. This was not okay.

Ed was on the same wavelength, Roy could tell. His irritation had wilted into defeat and he slowly shook his head, voice broken. “I have no idea.”

* * *

Hawkeye was not joking when she said Roy couldn't have Havoc back. If the poor lieutenant had to play ambulance driver one more time she was sure he would snap. Since they were currently equals in the eyes of the military, he couldn't overrule her, and technically she wasn't even being insubordinate when Roy protested and she called him spoiled.

It was evening when Roy pulled the car up to the house and put it in park. The setting sun had left the city in golden hour, the car windows were down and the cool, fresh air wafted through them. It smelled of leaves and fall and Roy felt relief bubble up within him at finally having the day’s ordeal over with. Finally being home.

He turned to the passenger seat, where Ed looked exhausted but offered a smile when he noticed Roy’s attention, and the colonel was struck again by how stunning he was. He returned the smile and tilted his head to the side, reminded of the night he dropped Ed off at the train station, back before everything had started to go so wrong, when he thought there would be all the time in the world for them to be something.

It must have shown on his face because Ed shifted towards him, a movement so small Roy wasn’t sure if he’d really seen it and so he hesitated. But then Ed was moving across the console and met Roy where he was, lips tentative on his own, Roy’s hand immediately threading into blond hair to return the kiss. Ed’s lips were soft and slow and Roy hadn’t known what to expect but Ed was good at this, not passive but not aggressive either, and certainly not shy. His tongue was on Roy’s lips and in his mouth, Roy’s heart pounding as Ed’s flesh hand wandered up his chest and neck, feather light over the bruise of his jaw before settling on gripping the collar of his shirt and pulling them even closer. He caught Roy’s bottom lip between his teeth, eliciting a sound from him that he knew Ed was grinning over like a madman, but he didn’t care. He had waited months for this and he never wanted it to end.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter gave me hell. About ¾ of the way through I decided I didn’t like the flow and rearranged a bunch of shit and had to bandage it back together. So more like I gave this chapter hell? Poor thing. Send flowers.

At the doctor’s encouragement, Roy and Hughes decided to give Ed a day of rest, which turned out to be perfectly laid plans because Ed slept till afternoon, through both his antibiotic drip and a visit from Hawkeye. Havoc dropped her off since he was still on edge about being anywhere near Roy or Ed while he was in possession of keys to a vehicle. Which also turned out perfectly, as she could return the military vehicle Roy had been forced to bring home the day before.

They were seated on a sofa in the great room when she handed over the sets of files Roy requested and it was made into an efficient transaction, favor for a favor, and she expected the return as soon as the weight of the files settled into Roy’s hands.

“How are…things?” she asked, looking pointedly toward the front room where Edward slept when she said ‘things’.

Roy was amused but also admired her bluntness for her concern. He knew it came from a good place, the same that had gotten him through Ishbal and its aftermath and pushed him to his current rank, all because she saw the possibility of something greater in him. He would be at least a third less of a soldier, possibly even a person, without her. Roy knew she would ask about his and Ed’s relationship again and already decided that he was going to tell her if she provided the question. She was certainly worthy of knowing, if for the simple fact that she would probably have the most logical reaction of anyone else Roy knew.

So he let his vulnerability show and smiled sheepishly, staring at the coffee table, files still in his hands. “I have never been more confused or intrigued by a person in my life.”

She nodded at his admission, accepting it as open to interpretation as it was. “Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked softly.

He shrugged and set the folders down. “There was nothing to tell then.”

She looked at him like she knew what he had done, and by all accounts she probably did. “And now?”

He focused on the little nick the coffee table had sustained from Ed’s automail. “And now I’m not completely sure what I’m doing, and that’s without the legalities.”

Hawkeye looked at him sternly, for so long he grew uncomfortable and had already looked away when she spoke. “Edward is months away from military retirement – if he’s even given the okay to come back at all.” She paused at this and looked at Roy, expression unreadable, gauging his reaction. Ed was lucky to be making it out of this alive and a medical discharge was very possible. Roy didn’t like to think about the double-edged sword, freedom from the military but a body that would probably never function at normal capacity again; he didn’t like to think about it but wasn’t so dense that he hadn’t and Hawkeye seemed satisfied he remained stoic. But then she leveled him in a new kind of look and he felt frozen. “And you. If you can make it through those months without anyone finding out, you still ought to have no trouble making it to the top. Once the higher ups get their shit together and hand the Fuhrership to Grumman, and as long as you continue on your path, I can guarantee you will be considered when he's ready to retire. He likes you. He's also a decent human being. I would say discretion is advised but you won't have to live in secrecy, either.”

She was so matter of fact that he was sure she was checking points off a mental checklist. Roy closed his eyes and dipped his head in a chuckle. “Are you singing your blessing, Hawkeye?”

“What I’m _saying_ ,” she interjected, “is that yes, this is ill-advised, and yes, there is still time for you to get in plenty of trouble. Edward may be legally entitled to whatever relationship he sees fit in the real world, but military law will trump civil law. Calling it 'trouble' is an understatement.” Her fancy way of reminding him that Ed had yet to reach the age of majority and the military would converge on that like sharks to blood. Roy opened his eyes again, still smiling but still not looking at the first lieutenant. She probably wasn’t even scary to look at right now, her voice was gentle and words even more so. “But these things are rare in life. They are worth handling with delicate hands when necessary.”

A little less rare than Riza’s laugh was her smile but she did, for just a moment. And then it was as if she had decided that her mission was complete. She refastened the satchel she had used to transport the files and stood, straightening her jacket.

Roy also stood and accompanied her to the front door. “Does anyone else know?” he asked.

“They have their own suspicions that I have not entertained.” They both looked to the left, into the front room and at the slumbering form of Ed. “Do you love him?” she asked softly.

His heart jumped and Roy was surprised at the way his body reacted to the question. He realized he’d taken a quick breath and that his eyes had gone wide and immediately flicked to Ed. The lieutenant didn’t call him on it and was patiently waiting for an answer, and Roy felt like he was testing for sturdy spots in a rotten floor while he carefully picked out a reply. “Love…comes in many forms, Hawkeye.”

The corners of her mouth tipped up again. “It also knows how to grow, if you let it,” she advised. “You and Ed have not been dealt the kindest hands in life. And maybe your own misguidance made it worse at some points. But that doesn’t mean you can’t try to have this.” Before he could say anything more, she had opened the door and taken a step through. “I want for your happiness, but I also want what you've worked so hard for. I expect absolute care and discretion. Do not let us down.”

"I wouldn't dream of it," he replied as she descended the porch steps to her vehicle. He waited until she'd started the car to shut the door. He looked into the front room and at the mess of blond hair peeking out from the blankets, watched the mass rise and fall with Ed’s noisy breathing and longed to lay there with him, curl around him, forget the world and all its problems for just a little while. He would never admit that Hawkeye’s question scared him, not even to the bottom of his shot glass as it helped him forget the world and all its problems, for just a little while.

* * *

Roy sat at the desk in his study, the file Hawkeye pulled spread out on its surface, with Ed on the sofa across from him, legs splayed across the cushions and back against the armrest. It was around four in the afternoon and Ed hadn’t even woken an hour ago but he was eager to get to work. After his abrupt recollection of the armor replica, he wouldn't give up on the idea that talking about events seemed to have some role in triggering memories. Like putting a puzzle together, he said. Give the brain enough to work with and maybe it’ll be a whole lot easier to find the missing information, or at least get a better idea of what belonged in the blanks.

It was his idea and it shouldn’t have been a big deal. Ed had, somehow, _lived_ this. But it had Roy nervous because it was also the exact opposite of what he had been told Ed needed as far as keeping stress to a minimum. But the two alchemists were in agreeance that the situation had started to look bleak, the findings coming too slowly and sometimes by plain luck, and all modes of research should be considered. One thing Roy had established was that he would not push beyond what Ed was willing to offer, and he hoped that it would be enough to keep this from heading south.

“Seven months ago,” Roy started and Ed visibly tensed at the edge of his focus. Roy looked up in concern. “You’re sure you want to do this?”

Ed set his jaw and stared at the armrest opposite of him. “If I had a choice I would say no. But I don’t, and you’re the only one available who I trust, so get on with it.”

Roy didn’t need to go into the before details, because Ed remembered Liore. They both knew what Scar had drawn and set off within the city and what Alphonse had become. But what Roy didn’t know was what happened between then and Alphonse suddenly emerging flesh and blood. He was someone without the knowledge helping another fish for lost memories. It even sounded like a lost cause.

“Immediately following the reaction in Liore, you relinquish Al to my team and take off. Two days after the reaction in Liore, Fuhrer King Bradley and his secretary Juliet Douglas disappear and chaos ensues. After being unaccounted for this entire time, _you_ suddenly reappear – hauled into an emergency room in Central by your brother – and the only word you could offer was ‘homunculi’. But suddenly, when it seemed like they had been everywhere – they were gone. All of them.” He looked up to gauge Ed’s reaction. “And when you finally wake up, you have no memory of the event. With the Fuhrer gone and unable to defend his reasoning of why your status was AWOL, it is cleared as a misunderstanding.”

Ed snorted. “I knew exactly what happened.”

“I know you did,” Roy said softly.

“And now I really don’t. Go figure.”

“Alphonse was incredibly upset that you left him behind.”

“You know why I had to,” Ed snapped, glaring. “I couldn’t risk him – I couldn’t even fucking _touch_ him-”

“I know,” Roy said again. “But it was impossible to calm him. And somehow, he knew he would find you in Central. And by some stroke of luck, he _did_. Can you tell me why?”

Ed did not answer but looked so serious in his silence and that Roy began to fear that he did have something to do with the Fuhrer’s disappearance.

“I…I made the call. To get rid of the homunculi.”

“How?” Roy asked, grateful for the change in topic. He wasn’t sure he was ready to hear the truth to his question.

“I don’t know. But it was me.”

“How many were there?”

“Four. Greed-“ Ed stopped at the name, face unreadable. He took a deep breath. “Greed. Lust. Sloth. Already dead.”

“You made this call. Who did you make it to?” Ed was silent. “Who did this?” Ed still didn’t answer.

Roy sighed and moved on. “You got hurt. The hospital said it looked like you’d been thrown around like a rag doll.”

That got him a reaction, Ed waving a hand dismissively. “I was already in rough shape from Liore. And then there was feedback from the reaction here in Central. I got thrown. Dante-” and then Ed stopped, surprised. The wide eyes that looked up to Roy clearly read ‘well look at that’ along with a smug smile, but it was quickly replaced by uneasiness as soon as Ed realized what he’d said.

“The woman they called Dante – I thought she died even before Liore,” Roy pressed, not wanting to lose the moment. Maybe it wasn’t exactly what they’d been searching for but it was a recovered memory nonetheless.

“Oh she was more than alive and well, and there.”

“What happened to her?”

Ed was quiet for a long time. “I don’t know. She made Gluttony lose what little intelligence he had, he probably ate her. How could she have ever thought that would be a good idea? What an idiot.”

“Did you see it happen?”

Ed shook his head. “My best guess.”

His breath suddenly hitched and before Roy could get a good look at him, Ed ran a hand through his bangs and covered the visible side of his face. All he could see was Ed’s jaw working, teeth gritting. He waited until Ed cleared his throat and dropped his hand. “Can we talk about something else?” Ed asked, voice raspy.

It was not his place to question so Roy flipped through the papers, forward some months, honing in on Ed’s next hospital stay. “What happened when you got Al’s body back?”

Ed relaxed, but not by much, leaning back and closing his eyes. “I trashed my arm.”

“Yes you did.”

“Winry was pissed.”

“Isn’t she always?”

Ed opened his eyes and considered his automail palm. “My hand was gone. She was especially pissed.”

“Do you remember where you were, Ed?” Ed lowered his hand and did not look like he had an answer. “Not that I would think you dumb enough to do it, but I did check the logs for the laboratories. You weren’t in them.”

Ed closed his eyes again and was quiet for so long Roy started to wonder if he was being ignored again. But he did his best to remain patient and reminded himself that they were both lost in it. Eventually Ed shifted and took a deep breath. “There was a basement. It was dark. We were working by lamplight, no electricity.”

“Where at?”

“I have no idea. I can’t remember anything significant about it.” There was a pause as Ed gathered his thoughts, breathing deep. “Someone. Someone may have been helping us.” Ed’s eyes flew open and he gripped the upholstery like it was the only thing that could ground him. Roy wasn’t sure what happened, but it was like a switch was flipped again and suddenly Ed was bordering on panic. While the previous instance had passed after a few seconds, this time Ed’s breathing was picking up, signaling the worsening of it. When Roy set the paper down and stood, Ed startled at the noise, hands flying up to entangle in his hair. “I feel like I need to run and I don’t know why.” He was shaking and his voice reflected it.

“Ed?” Roy tried quietly, stepping around from his desk and not yet near Ed, but that didn’t stop the blond from flinching away and cowering into the back of the couch.

He wouldn’t look at Roy, didn’t seem to want to be within his presence, gulping for air and trembling. “I- sorry. I just- need a minute,” Ed rasped, hands gripping his hair so tightly the colonel was sure it hurt.

Roy crept away, down the hall and to the kitchen to retrieve a dose of the pill sedative, returning to the study and offering it to Ed by placing it and a glass of water on the coffee table in front of him, before backing away. Ed’s body may have been distrusting of him but he didn’t question the offer, didn’t even ask what the pill was, just popped it and downed the glass of water before bringing his knees to his chest and curling in on himself.

Roy retreated to the kitchen and leaned against a wall, eyes closed, knowing something was wrong but unable to do anything about it. He did know it was why Ed originally refused to tell anyone, why he had played dumb and pretended to lose his memory, only to have it taken from him in a sick twist of fate. Something had shaken Ed to his core, so badly that even if his mind didn’t remember, his body couldn’t forget. When Ed asked for his help, the colonel knew it was a very possible outcome, but witnessing it unfold just left more questions than when they originally started. He couldn’t help but feel the guilt, that he should have not gone along with this.

The phone rang and pulled Roy out of his broods.

“Roy,” the voice on the other end breathed as soon as he picked up the phone.

“Maes?”

“We’ve found the armor.”

When the ice hit his veins, the same ice he’d felt when the girl in the ticket booth had confirmed seeing the armor, Roy knew he wouldn’t be able to immediately tell Ed.

As soon as they arrived in Central, Hughes’s new partner hadn’t skipped a beat and gotten right to work. He was going to be the best one day, Hughes said. They were lucky he had taken an interest and agreed to come work with them. The major quickly proved to them why that was when, not even a day later, he had tracked down the suit of armor. Roy was amazed and slightly unsure of how it was possible, but Hughes assured him that the major had incredible instincts.

The armor was found in a slummy part of town, a neighborhood so far gone that it was uncommon to even see the homeless there and patrols were few and far between. It was rare to see a house that wasn’t boarded up, and that’s where they found it, sitting against a wall in the grimy living room of a dilapidated home.

Roy knew what he risked if Ed found he kept the news to himself for the night, but giving Ed his rest seemed like the best decision. By the time Roy hung up, Ed had holed himself up in the front room once again, bed sheet covering the doorway and Roy didn’t dare disturb it and risk furthering upsetting him. The sound of Ed’s rough breathing was the only thing that kept Roy on the other side. He got no answer when he summoned Ed for dinner, when he told Ed he saved a plate for him, when he called good night and climbed the stairs to his room.

When their father died and mother left, Max had offered nine-year-old Roy the master bedroom. Roy hadn't wanted to give up his room, too young to understand their parents wouldn't be coming home. When he was a little older and curious, Roy asked Max why _he_ hadn't just taken it, and his brother had told him it was 'too weird'. Roy decided it was Max who was weird. At least until two weeks after his brother's death, when he thought he couldn't stand sleeping in the room next to his deceased sibling's, but found it just as unsettling to even enter his parents' room. It wasn't until he saved enough money to renovate away the familiarity that made the master suite feel so weird that he was able to move in. Now it was as if the room had only ever been his, with its dark teal walls, vaulted ceiling, and two large windows that faced the backyard and bracketed the bed. The ensuite was sleek, white tiles divided by black grout, and was just large enough for a standing shower. It was his sanctuary and the one place in the home that truly felt like his.

Midnight found Roy staring at the ceiling, sunk into the plush burgundy comforter on his bed, room alight from a single lamp on his bedside table, still guilting himself over the fact that he hadn’t told Ed about the armor. But as it stood, Roy wouldn’t be able to look at himself if the news sent Ed over the edge. If the call had been received even just half an hour sooner, the (mostly) failed memory retrieval session wouldn’t have taken place and they wouldn’t be dealing with this. He pressed the heel of his palm into his forehead and breathed.

A sound from his doorway had Roy looking up to a very tired and sullen looking Ed. His blonde hair was loose and unfocused eyes smoldered in the candle’s glow. “I don’t know if this is appropriate,” he rasped, and the colonel realized his breathing was erratic and shaky. “But can I stay? Just for now?”

“Of course, Ed,” Roy said, pulling the covers on the other side of the bed back. Ed padded through the door and across the floor, crawling into the bed and resuming his role of the little spoon.

Roy would have been content to have just this, have Edward here and accepting of his comfort and safe. Feeling Ed’s ribs rise and fall under his arm, the feeling of Ed’s heart pounding under his palm, were two things Roy hadn’t known he needed for so long. Ed only took two deep breaths before letting go of his thoughts, catching Roy by surprise. “I remember. I remember telling them, they had done incredible work. That I was well aware of the skill and the time and the care that had gone into those chimeras, because it would have even taken _me_ effort. That’s how good they were. That I did everything in my power to defend that to my higher ups. But no one would listen.” Ed’s body trembled and his voice broke when he said, “I told them I was sorry.

“At first the chimeras go willingly. Like I said, easy to handle. They were safe.” Ed pressed his back into Roy’s chest and curled in on himself, knees coming up to his stomach. “But the body count rises and the smell of death thickens, and there’s no hiding it. They may have been domesticated, but they were still prey animals. Who would walk willingly to their own death? So they start to panic, they start to struggle.” Ed was laying on his flesh arm but managed to cross it over his chest and squeeze Roy’s arm around him even tighter. “And when the soldiers get them to the spot, the cries they make. They know. They’re animals, not stupid.”

Ed gritted his teeth. “What would I have done a year ago? Not fucking give up. Why the fuck did I give up?” he whispered.

Roy could think of a number of reasons. Making a chimera was considered a highly illegal act, so illegal that Roy was surpassed by higher ups with the orders. The military had threatened the village with legal action if they didn’t agree to the disposal of the animals. A slap on the wrist in their eyes.

And because they had an alchemist who was more than capable of doing the dirty work, they didn’t bother to send more than two men, fresh out of basic, young but brawny and still naïve enough to never question an order. They hadn’t even bothered to send a gun, as if they’d expected Ed to go around slashing throats with his favorite makeshift blade. But Ed had the presence of mind to transmute his automail into a crude bolt gun.

Roy nuzzled his face into blond hair, pressing a kiss to the back of Ed’s skull. “Because you knew it was inevitable. That if you didn’t, someone else would, and who knows how they would have handled it. You gave them the kindest, quickest end you could offer,” Roy soothed. He was so damn relieved that he had made the right decision; the armor would still be there in the morning.

“When I killed those chimeras,” Ed whispered, tears lacing his voice, “all I could think of was Nina.”

Ed fought to control his breathing, fought so hard to reign in his grief but Roy knew this form of self-abuse all too well, the denial of emotional release, and he didn’t want Ed leaving his bed to deal with it all alone. When Roy whispered ‘please stay’ into blond hair, Ed finally let go. The sobs were quiet but wracked his frame, leaving Ed shaking and choking for air, and Roy enveloped him with his body as best as he could, hoping that he felt safe enough to let it out until it was done. And with Roy wrapped around him, Ed eventually quieted, unpredictable tremors coursing through him until sleep consumed them both.


	7. Chapter 7

Waking up to Ed the second time was a much more peaceful endeavor. He was again facing Roy, the tip of his nose touching the colonel’s chest, his flesh hand holding loosely onto the front of Roy’s shirt. His breathing was soft and even.

Roy always wanted more when it came to Ed. He wanted to be able to wake up slowly, to appreciate the way their bodies fit together, to laze under the covers until Ed woke on his own. But there was constant pressure to keep moving, keep progressing, keep getting closer to Al, and the need to keep that pace with Ed’s health intact was what drove Roy to gently uncurl Ed’s fingers from his shirt and extract himself from Ed’s knee tangled between his. Ed’s breathing became noticeably noisier but he didn’t stir. Roy hoped that if he was up before Ed, the teen wouldn’t question when the call came that the armor was found.

And he didn’t. An hour later at the breakfast bar, a freshly-woken Ed was stoic as Roy explained he would have to identify it when they got to the lab. The only question Ed’s voice scratched out was, “When do we leave?”

Ed still wasn’t back to his usual self, and was oddly reminiscent of the months between when the Fuhrer and homunculi fell and Alphonse reemerged, flesh and blood. Roy hadn’t seen much of him during that time, but enough to realize the difference. Ed was quiet and easily startled, flinching at creaks in the floorboards and even from Roy’s own hand.

Hughes sent a car for them, a young female corporal who saluted them both. She didn’t seem to have a lot of experience driving though, and whenever the car hit a rough patch, Ed gasped and grit his teeth and it took everything within Roy to not snap at her. He knew it wasn’t her fault, but the urge to make Ed’s pain stop was almost overwhelming. After the third bump that had Ed cursing, Roy reached over and clicked the seat belt buckle, Ed flinching as it retracted. “We’re almost there,” he reassured Ed, who said nothing.

The investigations building was quiet for a week day. The lab they were meeting in was large for the purpose it was being used for, with polished tile floors, white walls, and shiny steel tables. The investigators were across the room, studying a large map pinned to the wall, and turned at the sound of the door shutting behind the two alchemists. Ed was suddenly alert and intent and made a beeline for Hughes and his partner. Roy had begun to think of it as the Al Effect, as Al had the consistent ability to drive Ed beyond his limits.

Hughes grinned and waved while his partner stood tall and snapped a salute. “Colonel,” Anderson greeted and Roy nodded. The major looked just as he did in his military photo, shaggy brown hair and bright green eyes with an easy smile. Ed was immediately curious at his voice and gave the stranger a thorough look over.

Roy discreetly tapped Ed on the back to get his attention. “Major Elric, this is Major Anderson.”

The man extended his hand to Ed. “Hello Edward Elric. Levi Anderson. It is nice to meet you.” He had a thick accent and Ed’s eyes widened in realization.

Ed shook his hand, face serious. “Is that your real last name?”

Roy would have been more embarrassed if he’d felt responsible for Ed’s social prowess, and maybe he should have, because all he had to do was tell Ed the major was from Drachma and it could have been avoided.

But Major Anderson took it in stride and laughed. “Not by a long shot, but I do not like to go around advertising my relation to the north, you know? I left for a reason.”

Ed grinned. “Fair enough. I don’t even know if my last name is real either, if that counts for anything.” Roy wasn’t sure what Ed meant by that, but kept his confusion in check.

Anderson swept his hand toward his and Hughes’s work area. “Please, this way. We would like for you to identify the armor. It has already been thoroughly inspected and all evidence collected, so please handle it as needed.”

It sat next to a table under a white sheet and Ed flinched when the fabric was lifted. Seeing the armor presented like a body and the sudden shininess of Ed’s eyes that he tried to blink away made Roy’s chest tight. Ed placed his hands on the helmet, and after a breath, lifted it enough to peer inside. Roy wondered if he was checking for the blood seal, double checking to make sure he was living the right nightmare. Ed gently placed the helmet back properly and ran his fingers down the plume on top, a casual act of affection that Roy had witnessed between the brothers countless times but it had never stung to see. Ed began to look over the rest of the armor, smoothing his hands down the arms, examining the gloves, bending its knees, brushing his fingertips over the red flamel on its shoulder. After what felt like the longest few minutes of Roy’s life, Ed nodded. “Yeah. It’s ours.”

Anderson approached and removed the helmet, placing it carefully on the nearby table before unfastening the chest plate and opening it to reveal the inside. Roy noted that there was indeed no blood seal, just like it should be, but still thought how odd it looked without one. Anderson gestured to the inside, and Ed leaned in to get a better look. Roy was tempted to do the same but didn’t want to intrude, and so stayed back with Hughes. “What was strange is that we found scratch marks the right size and shape of human finger nails. In the metal.”

Ed bent down to peer inside. “Coulda been an automail hand.” His murmur echoed through the hollow armor.

Anderson nodded. “Our first assumption was your own automail, but there is a left and right hand here.”

Ed’s expression fell as Anderson pointed out what Roy assumed to be the marks in question. “You said there was evidence collected?”

The major nodded. “We found short blond hairs caught in some of the suit joints. They are currently being processed, but were visually identical to Alphonse’s that we collected from Resembool.” Anderson then hesitated, eyes flickering to Hughes, who nodded. “There was also blood. Not enough to cause alarm, but we need to know if you are aware of Alphonse’s blood type.”

Ed shook his head no, which made sense. Al had only had his body back for a matter of months and getting his blood type was probably at the bottom of the list of things Al wanted to experience. “But I do know mine,” Ed offered. “AB negative.”

Anderson’s eyes widened. “AB negative? You are sure?”

“Yeah.”

“AB negative is also the blood type found in the armor,” Anderson informed them, and a heaviness settled in the brief silence. “We may have no samples to compare to, but as his sibling and carrying the same incredibly rare blood type, well…”

“He was in the suit.” Ed sounded defeated.

“Quite possibly. Probably.”

Ed’s jaw clenched, and he nodded. He stood, laying a steadying hand on the table, head bowed as he stared at the empty suit of armor.

Anderson observed it with him, hands clasped behind his back as he stood as Ed’s side. “Thank you, Major Elric.”

The corner of Ed’s mouth tipped up in a half smile. He was still staring at the open chest plate. “It’s Ed.”

“Ed. You have given us very important information. As a man of equivalent exchange, would you like to know how I found the suit?”

That got Ed’s attention. He looked surprised and slightly pleased before he grinned. “Actually, yeah.”

Major Anderson returned the grin and swept Ed up in his explanations, thankfully breaking the depressive tension. Roy was content to step back but kept an ear on them, because he was admittedly curious as well. Hughes was perched on the edge of his stool like a proud parent watching their kid’s school theatre program. The colonel had to admit that witnessing one genius educate another of different ability was something beautiful.

The young investigator led Ed over to the map he and Hughes had been observing when they arrived. “They are very clever, and they have an affinity for doing things that are obvious, but not. They are very purposeful in what they do.” Anderson moved to tap at the train station that was marked with a red X.

“I assumed that they would abandon the armor, since they were so willing to be seen in a place that was frequented by it. They counted on being noticed.” He pointed at various areas on the map that were circled. “They were going to be rid of it quickly, so somewhere nearby. It was either going to be nearby your apartment Edward, or near the train station.”

His finger settled on a large circled area. “This space really stuck out to me for reasons I am still trying to decipher. I did like that it was halfway between the two, I liked that it is typically desolate.”

Anderson tapped another red X on the map, right on East 10th Street. “I knew they would place it inside somewhere, but did not think they would otherwise further hide it. They left the armor sitting within plain view of a window.”

“And by they, you mean…” Ed let it trail off, like he knew but was afraid to say it.

Anderson was suddenly very solemn. “I am afraid to tell you this Edward, but from my point of view, this does not look good.”

Ed’s eyebrows pulled tight together as he nodded.

“I know we were afraid to broach the subject of abduction. But I think we are very much looking at that reality now.”

“How is someone abducted while wearing a suit of armor?” Ed wondered aloud, his voice soft and discouraged.

“The power of fear is immense.” Anderson’s green eyes locked with Ed’s gold. “Be careful. The fact that they came all this way suggests to me that you are the true target of whatever may be happening here.”

It wasn’t the first time Roy had heard this comment, and he wondered if Hughes and Anderson had come to the same conclusion separately or were comparing notes. But the scariest part was that Roy didn’t think they were wrong.

“Do you have a file ready on the location it was found?” Roy asked.

Both Anderson and Ed jumped slightly, as if they’d forgotten there were others in the lab. It was Anderson who answered, “No Sir, not yet.”

“I’ll have it done this afternoon,” Hughes piped up from beside Roy, still sitting on his stool. “I’ll drop by on my way home.”

They had barely been at the lab for an hour but Ed was still weak from his hospital stay and it was all he could handle. It didn’t take long for him to shut down again either, but at least this time he was willing to accept Roy’s touch. Which was fortunate because it was like trying to help a drunk teenager into the house. He was weaving and leaning heavily into Roy, and it was the colonel who had to peel him out of the red coat and lay him down in the front room. He was asleep before Roy even got the IV started.

Ed was still dozing that evening when Hughes let himself in the front door. The lieutenant had his hand up and mouth open, ready to let the entire neighborhood know he arrived, but Roy made a gesture that strongly suggested he didn’t, motioning to the front room. Hughes followed his finger and saw Ed was sleeping and for once took the hint, quietly removing his boots and coat at the door before joining Roy in the great room. He dropped his satchel to the coffee table and started digging for what Roy assumed to be the file on the armor. Hughes frowned at the first folder he fished out, setting it to the side at which point Roy took it.

Maes made an anxious sound, hands too preoccupied with searching his bag to stop him. “Wait, that’s not it-”

But Roy flipped the folder open anyway, because if Hughes wasn’t going to respect his privacy he sure as hell wouldn’t be reciprocating. He wasn’t surprised to find his friend was picking at an old case. It was minor, but suspicious, and Roy knew how much Hughes loved to be suspicious about shit.

One month ago the groundskeeper of a graveyard noticed a disturbed grave and dug down a bit to investigate, only to find the coffin lid destroyed and the body gone. To most it was open and shut, simply the theft of a corpse, one that just so happened to not be a corpse when they were buried, which explained the scratch marks on the inside of the coffin. But it was an old grave and accidentally burying people who were still alive used to happen all the time, unbeknownst to family and doctors and morgue employees. Roy wasn’t sure who would want to steal a decades old body but he’d heard of stranger things happening. His friend, however, remained unconvinced it could be so easily explained.

“Maes,” Roy said in warning, tapping the file he had nosed into. “I thought you were done with digging up the past.”

The lieutenant in question huffed. “May I point out that I have only royally screwed up once in my digging? I may have gotten a little obsessed with Lab 5-”

“You nearly blew the whistle over a filing mishap of the Fuhrer’s secretary,” Roy reminded. “He only praised you for attention to detail because he was in a good mood. He’s not here to save you again.”

“Can’t a guy have a hobby? Geesh.” Hughes finally found the folder he was looking for and set it on the table, snatching his casket folder back.

Roy gave him a flat look. “Define ‘hobby’.”

Ed suddenly walked out of the front room and seemed intent on breezing straight through the great room. Roy was surprised that he didn’t immediately demand access to the files that were in plain sight, or even more like him, bury his face in them without warning.

"Where are you going?" Roy asked.

“Bathroom,” Ed rasped without stopping. Roy and Hughes watched him tromp down the hall and disappear into the bathroom.

They turned their attention back to the coffee table. "Does Ed live in his coat?" Hughes asked, tapping the casket folder on his chin.

Roy paused with his hand outstretched toward the report on the armor. He _had_ taken Ed’s coat off when they’d gotten home, hadn’t he? "What do you mean?"

His friend gestured a thumb over his shoulder. "Looked like he was ready to go somewhere."

Roy froze and his mouth went dry.

Shit.

Ed didn't even lock the bathroom door, which Roy would have found strange if there was time to think on it, but instead he had to launch himself across the tile and latched his arms around Ed, who was already halfway out the window and would have been off to God knows where if given just one more second.

Ed was surprised and yelped, kicking off the wall under the window and nearly sending them both to the floor. Roy managed to deter their momentum to the left and into a neighboring wall. The impact of it against his back stole the air from his lungs but he didn’t let go of Ed. Still though, Ed had the advantage of being more accustomed to hand-to-hand combat, as well as not having the wind knocked out of him, and made quick work of ducking out Roy’s hold. When Roy felt the slide of fabric against his arms, he gathered a bunch of it into his fists, but Ed easily slipped out of his coat and took a mad dive towards the door.

"Woah! Ed!" Roy finally found his breath, snagging a handful of the back of Ed's shirt and holding tight, hoping he couldn’t pull the same move as easily with a shirt. Ed cried at the sudden tug of fabric over his chest but it didn’t stop him. The entire ordeal happened so quickly that Hughes just then appeared in the hallway, alarmed. Ed was still fighting against Roy’s grip as if he couldn’t even see Hughes blocking the door. "What the hell are you doing Ed?!" Roy roared, giving a particularly rough yank on the blond’s shirt.

“I’M-” Ed started in a yell, before he fell quiet and stopped struggling at the same time. “I’m,” he said again, blinking hard and looking up at Hughes. Roy caught Ed’s reflection in the mirror, and he looked utterly confused and upset. “I don’t know what I was doing,” he finally said.

The ensuing quiet was eerie, Roy and Hughes exchanging worried looks. “Let’s go sit down,” Roy suggested gently, realizing he still had an iron grip on Ed’s shirt and letting go in favor of a hand on the teen’s shoulder. Both he and Ed were shaking.

“I felt like I had to go. Like I had somewhere to be. I don’t know what I was doing," he rambled, a little panicked, as he shuffled down the hall with Hughes in front and Roy behind. They ushered him to the sofa and each took a seat next to him. Hughes took up with the automail arm and Roy hoped if Ed had another freak out his friend would be ready to deal with it. Ed’s eyes were still huge, face blank. “I had to go,” he repeated.

“If you go out there and collapse, you are at the mercy of the universe. You could die,” Roy admonished, fighting against the anger that was being fueled by leftover adrenaline. He was reeling at the fact that Ed would just up and leave without a word, a not-so-gentle reminder that just because Ed seemed to tolerate Roy’s company and occasionally Roy’s tongue in his mouth didn’t mean that he would stop being impulsive and stubborn and so magnificently driven just to spare him. It didn’t stop Roy from wishing it true though. The only thing containing the ire under Roy’s skin was the fact that Ed seemed just as confused.

Ed sighed and scrubbed his face with both hands, then closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “The basement is dark and the floors that aren’t part of the lab are concrete. The door to the basement is at the end of the hall. It’s always dark, we never go when its light out, but it’s obvious the house is yellow.”

Roy realized Ed was describing the lab he and Al had used, though the details were sharper than they had been during their own interrogation. He looked to Hughes, expecting his friend to be confused, but instead he was looking at Ed like he was something dangerous.

“Did you just say yellow?” Hughes asked in disbelief.

Ed finally dropped his hands and stared at his lap. “Yeah. We picked that one ‘cause Al liked the color.”

Hughes was still giving Ed that look as he slowly opened the file folder on the armor. He flipped through the tabs before removing a picture and sliding it over to Ed.

“Is this the house?”

Roy watched the color drain from Ed’s face. “This is- it’s - how did you-?”

“This is where we found the armor.”

Ed sucked in a breath and snatched the picture up. Roy still hadn’t grown accustomed to feeling so unsettled, cold needles pricking his skin when he realized what they had stumbled upon. The house looked like it had been beautiful when built but was now dilapidated and dirty, its yard overgrown and roof caving in.

“How do you know this house, Ed?” Hughes asked, tone even and serious, and Ed didn’t answer, photo held tightly in his flesh hand. “By your description and the condition of the place, I’m going to assume that this is where you and Al did your work?”

Ed looked up at Hughes, and his eyes told it all.

The lieutenant took off his glasses and pinched the spots on his nose where they rested. “I am going to go home, and drink, and sleep. I’ll leave the file here, but you need to promise me you’ll rest, Ed. I’ll be better prepared to deal with this in the morning.” It wasn’t often that Maes admitted he needed a break, but of course Ed would be the one to drive him to do it. He put his glasses back on and stood, gathering his graveyard file and satchel. He paused and placed a hand on Ed’s head before heading to the front door. Roy accompanied him and they both paused to observe Ed, who was still staring at the picture of the yellow house. “I don’t like what’s going on here,” Hughes said as he pulled his coat on, voice low, face serious. “He’s going to need someone, and you’re going to be that someone. I hope you’re ready.

Roy wasn’t sure if he was, or what Hughes was even implying, but he also knew at that point he didn’t have a choice.

* * *

Edward had officially been a part of his home for eight days and for the second night in a row made himself a fixture in Roy’s bed. Which was perfectly fine with the colonel, because he now had to worry about Ed wandering off in addition to Ed not breathing and both of those things could be pretty well observed from his own bed with Ed in it.

What Roy didn’t expect was for Ed to immediately crawl over top of him, pressing their mouths and bodies together without preamble. The older alchemist made a noise of surprise but couldn’t be bothered to do anything beyond it, yielding to Ed's control and teeth and tongue. His lips were plush and soft and he was so relaxed, nearly going limp on top of Roy. He felt that something was off and while he let Ed have what he wanted, he was careful not to take anything more. But fuck if the contact didn’t send a current through his bones.

When they finally parted Ed cupped Roy’s chin and ran his thumb over his lips, grinning. “I like your face,” he whispered, still just inches away. His pupils were blown wide and dark.

Roy smirked. “Oh yeah? What’s into you?”

“I took a sedative,” Ed slurred, eyelids dropping and breath sweet on Roy’s face.

Well then. That explained a lot. He sighed and placed a hand on Ed's cheek, the blond nuzzling into his palm. “As in one?”

Ed rolled his eyes and grinned again. “Okay like, _maybe_ two.”

“And might I ask why?”

“I got something to tell you. But I can’t? Unless I’m doped up, y’know. I feel like I can’t control my body. I mean not that I’m great at controlling it this way either, ‘cause of your face, but at least I can talk without feeling like I’m gonna die.”

“Is that how you felt when we went over those files yesterday?”

“Uh-huh.” He rolled off of Roy and sprawled out on his back. “Like, shaky. Scared. Nightmares about weird shit that doesn’t make sense.”

Roy listened quietly, worry growing. He knew what post-traumatic stress disorder looked and sounded like, which on its own wasn’t alarming. Ed had lived through years of hell and Roy would have found it more concerning if he scraped by without any lasting psychological effects. But what worried him was that it was trauma specifically from this certain span of forgotten time that was causing it. It was strong and dipped in poison.

Roy rolled onto his side so he was propped up on an elbow. “So you need to tell me something?”

Ed frowned and laid his flesh arm across his face. “Things get worse,” he said quietly. “It’s about the Fuhrer.”

Roy’s stomach bottomed out. He knew there was a relation but he really wasn't ready to hear it. He would never be ready. But he fought to keep his calm, if not for himself, then at least for Ed.

Ed uncovered his face and let his arm fall to the bed. “Can you trust me?” His words didn’t slur and his expression was tired and sad.

That was a scary question, and even though Roy agreed, he wasn’t prepared for what came next. Ed was shaking and his voice was thick and unsteady as he explained that the reason Bradley was gone was because the man was one of _them_. Roy struggled to wrap his mind around it, briefly wondered if Ed might have been joking, but Ed didn’t stand on the verge of tears for the hell of it. Ed cried when he was at the edge of his sanity.

So many questions whirled through Roy mind that he didn’t even think Ed could answer. How did a homunculus climb its way to the top of the military? How many things had been orchestrated for that to happen? But he didn’t bother asking. He just listened.

Ed stuttered over the name Juliet Douglas and asked Roy if he knew where homunculi came from.

“When a human transmutation fails, a homunculus is created,” Ed whispered, and his voice wobbled, and Roy knew. Ed admitted that he’d known about her ever since he first laid eyes on her. That he encouraged Hughes to leave the Lab 5 case alone, go ahead, ask him. Ed didn’t want anyone getting hurt for his stupid mistakes.

But Roy already knew Ed tried, because Maes had told him. Where Hughes ignored Roy when the colonel insisted he back down, his friend had listened to Ed. And Roy was so glad he had because he didn’t know anyone other than Edward Elric who could face even just one homunculus and live to tell the tale. Roy’s mind reeled over the fact that Hughes had not royally screwed up, and that thought terrified him. The lieutenant had a dangerous mind.

Eventually the sedatives over taxed his already tired body and Ed quieted. Roy laid there on his back, staring at the ceiling, arm wrapped around Ed, who was curled into his side and seemed to be out like a light, breathing raspy but even. Roy’s mind was buzzing with this new information, and he wasn’t sure what he was meant to do with it. Fuhrer Bradley, homunculus or not, was gone. His secretary the same. All of the homunculi. So what was the point in telling him? Was it for Ed to free himself of dragging it all alone? To give to Roy so the colonel could see to it that nothing similar ever happened again?

“Y’know, she probably shoulda kept her end of the deal,” Ed slurred groggily. Roy hadn’t realized he was dozing off until Ed’s voice startled him.

“Hm?” Roy sighed, not even finding the energy to open his eyes.

“Paid for it anyway. Equivalent exchange.”

He must have been sleeping talking, but Roy struggled to hold on to those words as he also slipped into sleep. He wasn’t sure they mattered, or if they would even be there in the morning.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry (early) Christmas everyone!
> 
> Even though this is based off the 2003 anime, I did make Al a golden boy because I can okay. Not super important but just a little house keeping I felt like mentioning.

Starting Ed’s IV was an oddly intimate thing. The nurses trained Roy at the hospital, but he was under constant scrutiny and Ed was still weak and hardly himself, so it was very different doing it at home. Ed didn’t trust doctors or nurses, but he tried his hardest to trust Roy and only mildly panicked the first time. Roy reveled at Ed baring his collarbones and throat and tried to not dwell too hard on the fact that it wasn’t something Ed did for just anyone.

He never spoke during, so it caught Roy off guard when he was inserting the IV line and Ed whispered, “Please don’t do it.”

He frowned, knowing Ed wasn’t talking about the meds. “I have to tell them, Ed.”

“Y’know they’re just going to make a big deal about it.”

Roy adjusted the drip rate slowly as he started the antibiotics. “It is a big deal, so yes, I’d assume so.”

Ed’s eyes narrowed, jaw set in the kind of determination that had been the source of many headaches. “If you tell them I tried to run away, they’re gonna take me back and tie me to the bed.”

Roy faltered in his resolve. There was a decent chance that Ed wasn’t wrong, and then what? He would no longer be privy to information about Al’s case, let alone attempt to help the investigation. They would keep him alone in a sterile white room where he would make himself sicker wanting to get out. Roy wanted to believe that his home was the more ideal option, his opinion uninfluenced by his stupid feelings, but he knew better.

Most of his hesitation lay in the fact that he was so used to seeing Ed in his boots and coat that he hadn’t caught it; they were lucky Hughes had been there. If Ed lost it again and Roy didn’t notice in time and something went wrong, he would never forgive himself, and he wasn’t sure that was a risk he was willing to take.

Ed stood his ground, posture becoming more defiant each second Roy was contemplative. He held Ed’s gaze before turning to leave the front room, heading to phone in the kitchen and hoping Ed would be hard pressed to follow with the IV pole in tow. The thing was without wheels and surprisingly heavy.

Dr. Gray answered the call quickly and seemed unconcerned by one very short bout of confusion, to Roy's relief. Sort of. He might have left out the part where Ed tried to escape because his mouth had a mind of its own, had gotten him into this mess and was set on keeping him in it. The doctor explained that Ed was still not out of the woods and his body wasn’t working at capacity, so it wasn’t uncommon for brief changes in behavior and consciousness to occur. It didn’t help that Ed had a new history of seizures and memory loss thrown into the mess. Stress could do strange things and one couldn’t argue that Ed had been through a lot the past few weeks. The doctor would send a nurse over, tomorrow morning by the latest, for an expert eye to check his vitals, but unless it happened again, he wouldn’t worry over it.

As he hung up, Roy wondered with some guilt if Ed’s stupor had been induced by their trip to the investigations lab _. Too much excitement. Keep the fieldtrips to a minimum_. Ed was pushing stubbornly against his limits, and they were pushing right back, harder.

Case in point, Edward was eavesdropping in the foyer, having abandoned the IV pole altogether in favor of holding the bag of antibiotics as high as his hand could reach. Though his breathing was shaky he still defiantly squared his shoulders, daring the colonel to say something, but Roy wasn’t going to give Ed the satisfaction. He simply took the IV bag and ushered Ed back to his post on the couch. Ed was still giving him the eye as Roy gently detangled any twists in the IV line before rehanging the bag.

“Why’d you do that for me?”

Roy checked the drip rate to make sure it was still correct. “It isn’t the first time I’ve withheld medical information for you.”

Ed rolled his eyes. “Please. It’s not even the same thing.”

Roy checked the port at Ed’s collarbone to ensure the line was still properly attached, Ed observing him out of the corner of his eye. “It’s understandable. You’d come to expect it.”

“That’s it, huh?” Ed asked in something like disappointment, as if he knew Roy was withholding his own truths. But it had barely been a week and Roy couldn’t very well tell Ed that he didn’t particularly want to go back to living in his house alone, because that was even scarier than admitting it to himself in the first place.

Roy pulled away, golden eyes tracking his fingers before their gazes met. “I took you to the investigations lab when I was under orders to err on the side of caution, and it may have been too much for you to handle. You will no longer be leaving unless necessary. And if - whatever happened - happens again, that’s it.”

Ed stared at him hard. “It won’t happen again.”

He was sitting and Roy was still standing and the distance between them suddenly felt like a sea. It was the point where Ed usually, in not so many words, asked Roy to stay. The medicine made him woozy and unsettled and it wasn’t fun, especially alone. But this time he didn’t, just stared at Roy from under blond lashes until the colonel turned to leave, pausing in the doorway. “The doctor is sending a nurse over by tomorrow morning.”

Ed groaned into his hands.

Roy’s mouth twitched in a smile. “They don’t have my permission to stick you with any needles.”

Ed peeked between his fingers and at Roy, searching, suspicious. Eventually he dropped his hands, laying one on the empty spot next to him and giving Roy a look, annoyed but expectant.

* * *

Hughes, true to his word, showed up shortly after the drip finished.

“Well hello!” he said, sounding surprised but pleased to see Ed answering the door.

Ed nodded. “Sup.”

He stepped aside to let Hughes in before closing the door. “Good to see you up and feeling well. Have a chance to look at that file yet?”

“No. He wouldn’t let me.” Ed jabbed a thumb over his shoulder at Roy, who was now sitting in the great room doing paperwork. “He hid it and everything.”

Hughes peeked around Ed, mouth agape. “Roy! Who gave you the authority?”

“The military when they made me colonel,” Roy answered, looking up when he was met with silence. Both Ed and Maes looked decidedly unimpressed by his reasoning. He pointed at the grandfather clock. “The deal was he finish his meds first, which just happened. File is on top of the clock.”

Ed’s jaw dropped as he watched Hughes retrieve the file, the lieutenant just barely making it on his tiptoes. Roy knew the look on Ed’s face was going to be worth having to find a new hiding spot and tried miserably to hide his smirk. Ed snapped his mouth shut and glared. “You’re such a bastard,” he growled.

Hughes chuckled as he went to have a seat next to Roy. “Oh okay I see how it is, _haha_ ,” Ed mocked, stomping over to the opposite couch, flopping onto it with the ferocity of an angry teenager and glaring again, this time at both of the older men. “Laugh at the sick kid. Hope you sleep well at night.”

Hughes grinned apologetically, adjusting his glasses as Ed pouted. “Oh come on, Ed. I’m sorry.”

“I’m not,” Roy shrugged. Ed’s eyes sharpened again.

“Yeah you remember that the next time you try to get me into your bed,” he said accusingly. As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Ed realized how it sounded, his cheeks turning pink.

Hughes’s eyes were wide as he looked over to Roy, who bristled and pointed at Ed. “You brought yourself there both times, and all you did was hog the covers.”

“Well have fun getting them all to yourself,” Ed retorted, still pouting, still blushing. Hughes looked between the two of them, the grin slowly spreading. Ed pointed at him. “Don’t even.”

Hughes flicked his hands up in mock surrender. “Alrighty then,” he said, opening the file on the yellow house. It was nice to pretend this was something that Hughes would leave alone, but he knew Roy didn’t let people into his bed and the colonel was going to hear about it later. Maes was probably going to be caught between being thrilled Roy was working through his idiosyncrasy and defending Ed’s honor.

“I’ll read what little we’ve got. Let me know if you have any questions.”

Ed made a noise that Roy supposed was agreement, and Hughes began. “812 E 10th Street. Built in 1880, condemned in 1905. No prior recorded activity at this residence.

Preliminary investigation shows a typical house in decades-long abandonment. Utilities have been completely disconnected. The house has two bedrooms, one bathroom, living area, dining area, kitchen, and basement. This house still has many of its windows intact and none boarded up, making it unlike other homes in the area. The roof is caving in but the ceiling inside is intact and in good condition.

Another trait that sets this house apart is its lack of flooring. Most other houses in the vicinity all have their floors intact. The floors in this home have all been recently removed.

The basement door had to be removed from its hinges to be accessed. The lock appeared to have been tampered with. The basement itself is half primitive laboratory, with a window that looks out to the street, tile floor and countertops, two sinks powered by foot pedal, various pieces of intact glassware such as beakers, test tubes, etc. The other half of the basement is concrete and cinder block. The original building plans state that the entire basement should have concrete floors, however this could have been an error.

The biggest lead the house could provide was the laboratory and glassware that was in remarkably good shape and relatively clean for the conditions. Testing on the glassware is pending. Suspected drug activity-”

Ed scoffed. “Drug activity? What are they gonna do, point the finger at the gangs around here? They’re a bunch of city-dwelling domesticated pansies. And too stupid to orchestrate this sort of thing.”

“Unfortunately, without you officially admitting relation to this house, this is the path they will push us to pursue.”

“So just fuckin’ tell them Al liked feeding stray cats around there or something.” Ed was frowning and agitated and looked like he needed to get up and pace. “Maybe whoever took him was trying to get him to go to my apartment and he went there instead to protect me. And then they were pissed and took it out on him. Would explain the blood.”

“Was there anyone with two automail limbs that you could have made so angry? Anyone your mechanics serviced that you may have left…disgruntled?”

Ed shook his head. “Nah. The only time I saw other patients there was during my original surgery and rehab. I was a grumpy ass kid but I’d earned it, I didn’t piss anyone off or anything. I don’t even remember anyone with dual automail arms. I can ask Granny and Winry but they’ll probably say the same.”

Hughes made a note on the back of the report. “I’ll give them a call when I get to the office.”

Ed excused himself to the bathroom, which was a little too much déjà vu for the other men but Ed waved a dismissive hand and did what he wanted. Roy watched him go, painfully aware that yes, Ed was in his socks.

With Ed’s increased agitation and health in mind, they both decided to call their short meeting done. There wasn’t much more to the report anyway, aside from specifics of details they already knew, so Hughes started to pack it up. “We’re going to work on making a copy and until then, I’ll have to take this with me. But I do have copies of the pictures for you,” he said, digging through his satchel. He didn’t even try to hide the casket file as he removed it to find the pictures.

“Aren’t you done with that yet?” Roy grumbled.

Hughes shot him a grin, producing a photo envelope that he held out in offering. “Would you believe Anderson thinks the injury to the casket lid was inflicted upward and out?”

Roy took the photos, looking skeptical. “And knowing that would accomplish, what exactly? Proof of the living dead?”

“Or just how incredible human strength can be in the face of death. Could you imagine waking up in a grave?” The lieutenant packed the two files back into his bag while Roy gave him a deadpanned look.

“I’d rather not.”

He patted Roy on the shoulder sympathetically. “Being buried with your gloves won’t help you, buddy.”

“Fuck anyone who sticks me in a box in the ground. Graveyards are fucking weird and a waste of space,” Ed interjected as he reemerged from the hall, flopping onto the other sofa.

Hughes smiled and shrugged. “It’s less about you and more about the people you leave behind.”

Ed snorted and waved his hand in the air. “Tell my people to turn me to ashes and throw me to the wind. Then they can talk to every breeze instead of one measly headstone.” Ed could literally pull poetry about ashes out of thin air and Roy wanted to kiss him.

Hughes yawned obnoxiously despite it being ten in the morning. "Well, as much as I’m enjoying this conversation, I actually have to show up to work," he said, winking at Roy, who asked the ceiling for patience. "I'll give you a call if anything comes up." He stood and lifted the satchel to his shoulder. Ed suddenly sat bolt upright, eyes wide.

“Wait!” he said sharply, seeming to surprise himself as soon as the words were out. He blinked hard and took a breath, eyes flitting from one worried face to the other. “Thank you, Hughes,” he eventually said, looking like he planned to say more. Hughes didn’t call him on it, just let the silence play out for a few beats longer before smiling and ruffling Ed’s hair.

“I’m doing all I can. I promise.”

Ed nodded and the two shared a sad smile.

Roy saw the lieutenant to the door, waiting as his friend donned his coat and boots. Hughes opened the door but instead of leaving, threw an arm around Roy’s shoulders, pulling the startled colonel close so he could speak low. “This should go without saying, but I expect a lot from you. You may have been here first but he is just as much family. Be good to him.”

Thankfully the be-a-good-boy speech was shorter than it was painful, the lieutenant letting him go and stepping through the doorway. He stopped on Roy’s porch and turned, finger in the air.

“And by the way, I included some pictures of my adorable Elysia for you two to appreciate.” Roy shut the door in his face. “WE WENT TO THE ZOO!” he shouted from outside as the colonel stalked out of the foyer.

Ed, who was looking bemused, already had a few photos spread out in front of him on the coffee table. “Why were you guys talking about graves?”

Instead of reclaiming his original seat, Roy felt brave enough to take a seat next to Ed, who didn’t protest. “Hughes is digging again.”

Ed looked alarmed at his choice of words.

“No no, not literally,” Roy said, biting back a laugh. “There’s a case about a disturbed grave that he’s conducting further investigation into.”

Ed snorted and looked a little relieved, but not by much. “Did you tell him to knock it off?”

Roy had thought about it, but other than the threat of zombies, this case seemed relatively harmless. “No. I think he does it to give his mind a break from more serious cases.” He looked at the photos Ed had spread out, various shots of the yellow house. “You and Alphonse mean a lot to him, you know. This hasn’t been easy for him either.”

Ed’s jaw worked a bit, but he didn’t say anything.

“Ed?”

“Hm.”

“Why did you two do this in the city?”

Ed shrugged, like he didn’t really know, and maybe he didn’t. “It was our only consistent base between missions. And if something did go wrong again, the hospitals are closer, and better. How fucking lucky did I get the first time, to have neighbors that treat amputees?” The next photo Ed took from the envelope was of the armor as it had been found, sitting in that living room and covered in a thin layer of dust. “We were in your office less than twelve hours after. D’you remember?” Ed asked, flashing his teeth before turning back to the photos.

It was a silly question, because how could anyone who was there forget? Hawkeye had been giving the morning report at Roy’s desk when there was a sudden roar from the men in the outer office. He and the first lieutenant burst through the adjoining door, guns and gloves drawn, right into the sweet and smiling face of Alphonse Elric, who trusted them so completely that he didn’t even flinch. And still standing at the door to the hall was Ed, who looked utterly exhausted but serene, a smile so beautiful that Roy thought it may have been the moment he was gone.

“It worked,” Roy had stated dumbly, and Al laughed.

“Yeah, Brother had to pull an all-nighter, but it got done.” Hearing his voice without the metallic echo was so strange and yet right, the chord of it threatening to overwhelm Roy’s more sensible emotions. Al’s hair and eyes were each a few shades darker than Ed’s, his features softer, and he was a few inches taller. But he was unmistakably Elric.

“Now what?” Roy had asked.

“Now I go on leave,” Ed replied, stepping away from the wall with his right coat sleeve empty and trailing behind him like a ribbon. That must have been some reaction. “I’m not sure how long it’s gonna take, but if you could get me a month, that should do it.”

Roy was going to protest automail reconstruction taking a month, but stopped and reminded himself of what had just been achieved and what it had taken to get there. And that wasn’t even counting the stories Roy hadn’t heard. Upon taking another look at Ed, it was easy to see the hunch of his shoulders, the haunted look that flitted through his eyes, the frown in his brow. Roy told Ed he would see what he could do.

It took three days to work out the kinks, but the look of relief and gratitude on Ed’s face when Roy told him to enjoy his two months off had been well worth the paperwork. The Fullmetal Alchemist had earned a lifetime of rest and Roy wished he could have signed Ed’s discharge papers that day.

Ed tapped a finger on a picture that seemed to be of the home’s basement, the section that was made of dirt. “I remember being in your office, but I can’t remember what it was like right after we succeeded. I wonder what it was like for him. I wish I could ask.” Ed’s expression turned increasingly anguished, voice rough. “Somewhere out there, my brother is alive, and hurt, and scared. And I'm not where I need to be. I'm not with him.”

Ed seemed to be constantly driven by guilt, but Roy was no stranger, either. “I got to the scene ten minutes after the building fell and they wouldn’t let me past the perimeter,” Roy offered softly. Ed had quieted and was looking at him now, and that was something, so Roy continued. “They had to cuff me to the police cruiser because nothing else was going to stop me from getting to him, and I still nearly took my arms out of socket trying.” It had been a dark and windy evening, lit by the cruisers’ spotlights and the fire engine’s cherry-red flashers and the few streetlights that hadn’t gone out. Officers were shouting orders and the K9s were barking, the smell of ash thick in the air. They had cuffed Roy to the car frame, hands behind his back, while he shouted and struggled and felt so utterly useless. 

He took a deep breath and held out his wrists, the scars from the handcuffs faded with time and nearly unnoticeable otherwise, and locked eyes with Ed. “To empathize. And I suppose to say, you are still able to help, even if it isn’t as much as you hoped. Not all of us are so lucky.”

Elbows on his knees, Ed laughed hollowly and shook his head. “I don’t know how you did it afterward.”

“Did what?”

Ed stared at the coffee table as he smiled and shrugged. “Lived.”

Roy wondered himself, sometimes still. But in the end, it always came back to the same thing. “He would have been disappointed if I hadn’t.”

Ed let out something between a laugh and a sob, balling his automail hand into a fist that sounded of grinding metal while his flesh hand sought out Roy’s, who obliged but wasn’t quite sure where to go from there. Maybe this was what Hughes had meant by Ed needing someone. A warning to Roy, who had dealt with the loss of his brother all alone, that he was going to have to be someone he himself hadn’t had. Roy struggled in that moment to remember what he would have wanted from someone then.

The heat between their palms prickled as Ed held onto Roy like he was an anchor. And maybe right then that was all he needed to be.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ‘Uh hey I thought we were promised a chapter sooner and-‘
> 
> Indeed! My apologies. This story is a rewrite and I overestimated just how much of the old chapter I would be able to use. By like, a lot. I should know better than to promise when updates will happen.
> 
> I snagged some lines straight from the anime because they are perfect and always fucking get me. You’ll know the ones.
> 
> This fic is now fully tagged and still without archive warnings. This is the last time I will point this out, so proceed with caution.

Roy woke in the middle of the night to the shrill ring of the phone, the first jarring him from his sleep and the second waking him enough to recognize the sound. He leaned up on his elbow, half asleep and waiting for the third ring, but none came. It made him unsettled in his sleep haze, called back to the covers only by Ed’s hand reaching out to curl into the hem of his shirt.

They were up early the next morning in anticipation of Ed’s check up with the nurse. With her arrival window a vague ‘sometime in the morning’, it seemed best to avoid any chance of being caught off guard. Ed showered while Roy started coffee and delved straight into his paperwork. Hawkeye was due for a pick up the next day and he didn’t feel like disappointing her, sometimes that took more energy than doing the work in the first place.

He was halfway through a report when Ed did that thing where he came out of nowhere, grabbing his wrist and holding fast even though Roy’s initial reaction was to pull away. He froze when he saw Ed’s hair was loose, bright and silky and smelling of his own shampoo. And was that _his_ shirt _?_

“Never woulda noticed that if you hadn’t said something,” Ed said, tracing the faint line with his thumb before letting him go. “I can’t believe they cuffed you to the cruiser like a dog. What assholes.”

Roy rubbed his wrist out of habit. “It was one more person looking for him.”

“I’m sure the search was dangerous.”

He was trying to gauge where Ed was headed with a topic he didn’t particularly feel like revisiting so soon and eyed him warily. “So they said.”

“Would it have been worth that risk?”

“You’re one to ask,” left him before he realized it, and maybe it wasn’t the right thing to say, even if it was true and Ed was prying a little too hard.

His remorse must have shown because Ed, who hated pity but especially from those who ought to know better than to offer it, scowled. “Forget it. And stop looking at me like I’m gonna fucking die if you let me have the truth.”

He didn’t seem to see the irony in how he invaded Roy’s personal and headspace and still managed to get mad at _Roy_ about it. He started to take a step back but Roy reached out, grasping Ed’s ( _his_ ) shirt hem between his thumb and forefinger and holding it taut. “Do you really consider it wise to be wearing my clothes today?”

Ed let his lower half be pulled forward, pleased his thievery had been acknowledged. “Am I not allowed to have clothes in other sizes?” he challenged, within his right. He was the same person who would still be wearing leather pants daily if life hadn’t interrupted him, so really, a t-shirt two sizes too big was tame. Roy wordlessly conceded to his point and followed the black of his shirt until it met the wheat of Ed’s hair, curling the fingers of his other hand into the blond ends. Their eyes locked, and he was about to comment on the fact that Ed had soap-and-water _washed_ it, but he was interrupted by a knock to the front door that made them both jump, shirt and hair slipping from his fingers. Ed sulkily retreated into the shadows of the hallway, surely where he would remain until summoned for his checkup, while Roy moved to answer the door.

He opened it to Hawkeye, which had him confused. She wasn’t due until the next day, and even if he was expecting her, she never forgot to call ahead. She saluted him with tears in her eyes and time seemed to slow down. The sunrise behind her was beautiful, pink streaks cutting jaggedly into indigo. The fall leaves were all varying shades of yellow and gold that reminded him of Ed and it felt cold enough to snow. Her voice wavered ‘ _Colonel’_ , forcing him to stay with her through that terrible beat of time when he realized why she was at his door.

“I am so sorry,” she said, her voice controlled but tears spilling over. Roy only caught bits and pieces of what she said through the static in his ears.

“- regret to inform-”

_Oh God_

“- East 10th Street-”

_please not him_

“- homicide-”

_please not Alphonse_

Riza’s lips moved with a name.

It wasn’t Al.

But it still struck Roy like a stone to the heart, his breath shuddering an oh as it left him. He turned to look behind him, hoping Ed was still tucked into the shadows of the hallway but of course he wasn’t. He’d followed the sound of her voice and was frozen in the middle of the foyer, eyes wide in disbelief. He looked from her, to Roy, and back to her.

“No,” he whispered, shaking his head. “No. NO.” He kept repeating it, louder, and louder still, until his chest began to heave and his lungs struggled to accommodate.

The soldier took over again. The black case was sitting with Edward’s things in the front room just feet away, and as Ed’s panic became full blown, Roy was drawing the liquid sedative into the syringe. He didn’t remember walking there, barely registered himself shouting for Hawkeye to hold Ed down, and then he was plunging the needle into the port at Ed’s collarbone as Riza barely managed to overpower him.

Ed went down screaming, and Roy wished it was him.

* * *

He went numb and the next few days happened in brief flashes of time.

The nurse arriving as Ed came around from the heavy sedation and her staying to make sure the transition went smoothly. Sitting in the waiting room at the hospital when it didn’t. Being pulled away for interrogating while the nurses worked to gradually bring Ed back up. The ride home after two days in the hospital, Havoc having volunteered to drive, if only to ask them if they were okay.

The next day, as dirt was being shoveled over the casket, Roy decided no, he wasn’t.

* * *

Maes liked to say ‘life goes on’, but Roy found that wasn’t always true. Sometimes life would stop and stall and need to be reborn, and hitting the brakes wasn’t anything short of agony.

It was already growing dark when they returned home and neither had done much more than kick off their boots at the door. Roy stood in front of his coffee table, folder clutched in his hands. Ed settled on one of the sofas, still wearing three layers of clothes and a surgical respirator, the two conditions that he had to meet for the doctor to allow him to attend the funeral. For the past few days he had barely spoken or looked anything other than absolutely stunned, and Roy knew he was going to crack. He feared having to sedate him again, or worse, another hospital stay - because another hospital stay meant it was over. The doctor made it clear that if Ed came back for anything other than a check-up it would be the end of their outpatient experiment. They would keep him for the rest of the treatment, Roy would go back to the office, life would stall again. The worst part wouldn’t even be Ed leaving, it would be admitting he was still so sick he couldn’t survive outside of a hospital.

_Mommy, why are they putting all that dirt on Daddy?_

Her voice in his head made Roy flinch so violently that he even caught Ed’s attention. But Roy couldn’t look at him, knowing the only thing the respirator mask left visible were sad golden eyes that saw right through him. He dropped the file to the table with a slap before becoming a flurry of movement, yanking an ignition glove from his pocket, sending a spark to the fireplace, tearing his coat and uniform dress jacket off, throwing them toward the vicinity of the coat rack, and heading for the kitchen. He hit the lights and reached for the cabinet above all the rest, coming down with the first bottle he touched. He got a glass, filled it half, and immediately downed it, focusing on the burn. He filled it again.

_But if Daddy gets buried then he won’t be able to do all his work._

When Roy learned his body had been found in a phone booth, any hope of making something like peace of the tragedy was extinguished. It had to have been the first one he’d come across in that part of town, an entire mile west of the yellow house. His blood hadn’t started until half a mile in, but the military car he’d signed for was parked out front and several of his throwing knives had been found on the property, so it was clear it was his starting point.

Gunshot to the abdomen that brushed an artery, and his adrenaline had taken care of the rest. While Roy had been falling back to sleep, his best friend had bled to death.

Roy stood with his palms pressed to the counter in front of his drink. Trying, trying so hard and failing, to make sense of it even if the world had already made it perfectly clear. Maes Hughes was dead. Gone. Buried. One more time for the people in the back. One more time to hammer it into his skull.

He never handled death well. Not when he caused it, and not when it took from him.

_Daddy said he has a bunch of work he needs to do!_

He took another swig of whiskey and felt like an idiot, his flawed logic taunting him with more animosity than usual. What was he going to do next? Pathetically wander through Maes’s office whenever he got the chance? Because by his way of thought, that’s exactly what should happen next. Fuck. It didn’t make sense. He had wasted so much time in this house, forcing it to work, because why? Stupid, empty reasons. For the two doors that lead to his brother’s room. Hoping to catch a glimpse of him in the kitchen or at the front door, even though those fleeting memories had stopped happening a long, long time ago. Even though being here for too long turned him into a pathetic shell of a person.

And what had he been thinking, bringing Ed into this place and letting Ed watch him falter under the weight of it?

_NO! STOP IT! Stop putting dirt on him!_

He downed the rest of the drink, pressing the glass to his cheek.

When he finally found his way back to the couch, Ed was in the foyer hanging his coat. He had reversed its colors, black with a red flamel, and Roy wondered how long he would keep it that way. He yanked off the surgical respirator so aggressively that he looked ready to throw it, but instead hung it with his coat with a surprising level of gentleness. He began to peel his clothes off right there at the front door, tossing them into the pile of Roy’s jackets.

_DADDY!_

Roy stopped just short of clamping his hands over his ears, instead running them through his slicked back hair, furiously mussing it up. He could feel the warmth of the alcohol filling him now, running lazily through his blood and reaching for every part of him it could, numbing his tattered edges. Ed had a seat next to him and they stared at the coffee table in silence, as if they had no idea what should come next.

“I am never going to unhear her,” Ed eventually whispered. Roy couldn’t tell him that he wouldn’t either. He couldn’t even find the motivation to close his eyes. He somehow managed a hand to Ed’s shoulder but Ed jerked away, shaking his head as he stood again. "God, and Gracia has to know. She probably can’t stand the fucking thought of me now.”

Roy swallowed and breathed and willed himself to keep it together, placing his hand on the cushion Ed had vacated. “Ed.”

He was pacing now, a flurry of blond bangs and wild eyes that weren’t really seeing, his brain running too quickly. “She has to go back to _their_ home with _their_ daughter and-”

“Ed-”

“-just sit there and think about him, and how he ran for his life for over a mile, that the last thing he did was pull a photo of them from his wallet-”

Roy pressed the heel of his palm to his forehead and _breathed_.

“-and she gets to grieve while trying not to let Elysia forget him, fuck, she’s only _four_ , and he loved her _so_ much and someday she might not remember-”

Ed gulped down his sobs, tapping his fist on the wall, like he was about to sink his automail through the plaster and into the pipes and wrench them from the frame of the house. Roy wouldn’t have blamed him, wouldn’t have even been angry. At this point Ed would be doing him a favor. Rip it to pieces. Burn what was left. Ed had done it before, he could show Roy just how so he could never come back, even if he wanted to.

“The worst part of someone you love dying,” Ed whispered, “is going home after.” He let the knuckles of his automail scrape down the wall until it hung at his side, his breathing raspy and shaky. “Bonus points if you lived with them. It’s a special kind of hell.”

“And sometimes it never goes away.” Ed quieted at that, his shoulders sagging. Roy’s stare was fixed on the black file folder, its tab that read Hughes, M., and he longed to grab it and pitch it into the wall or into the fire or into the wind even though he knew it wouldn’t make him feel any better. “This place never felt like home after my brother died.”

“Then why are you still here?” Ed asked.

Roy shrugged, knowing how hopeless the answer was. “I didn’t want to forget him.”

Ed’s breath hitched. “You’re an idiot,” he said. A few footsteps later he sank into the cushion next to Roy but didn’t touch him, elbows on his knees and hands clasped. “I don’t remember how many steps it was from the front door to the kitchen, or how many windows there were, and someday I might forget the date we burnt it down. But I will never forget my mother’s hand on my face, her voice, how pretty her eyes were.” He shook his head and smiled, wistful. “You don’t have to torture yourself every day to remember someone.”

“Torture is a little dramatic, but yes, I realize how stupid it sounds.”

“Not _stupid_ ,” Ed said, making a face despite the fact that he'd just called Roy an idiot. “Just, misguided.”

Roy was growing to dislike that word, _misguided._ Riza liked to use it on him, her nicest way of saying well meaning, but stupid.

“What d’you think he would say to you, your brother?”

Roy managed something like a smile. “Something cliché and sappy. Probably ‘home is not a place, it’s a feeling.’”

“So where’s home?”

Roy’s smile dissipated and he swallowed against the ache in his chest. Home was the brother who had raised him, the best friend who pushed him to keep turning pages when he was ready to burn the book. It certainly wasn’t this prison he’d spent the last fourteen years not doing much more than just surviving in. “I’m not sure and would rather not try to figure it out right now.”

Ed was nothing if not insistent. “What about for me?” he asked.

“Alchemy,” Roy answered without thinking.

Ed scoffed. “Not wrong, but do better.”

“Resembool, Alphonse and the Rockbells, and…”

Ed looked at him, head tilted. “You?”

Roy sucked in a breath. Ed’s voice was velvet, his eyes were smoldering in the flickering fire and they should have been too impossible to be real. God, he was so beautiful, and this life was such shit. “I wouldn’t be so bold,” he said quietly.

Ed nodded slowly. “I’m okay with that,” he said. He leaned in until his lips were just over Roy’s. “Long as you don’t mind,” he breathed.

Roy couldn't stop himself. Suddenly his hands were in Ed's hair and crushing their mouths together. Ed pushed into the kiss even more than Roy had already asked, turning his body into it and parting his lips. Between the distraction of Ed’s teeth and tongue and upper body pressed hot to his, and the alcohol humming through his veins, Roy wasn’t aware of what was happening until Ed was already straddling his lap. His brain was frantically waving a red flag at the edge of his consciousness, but he was too enthralled by the dexterity of Ed’s automail and the pressure of his teeth to notice.

So Roy let him. Let him climb down button after button on his shirt and shove it off. Let those same fingers run over the cotton t-shirt that covered his chest, trailing down his ribs, thighs, to his knees and back up. Let him detangle one of Roy’s hands from his hair and put it to his backside, rocking their hips together. Roy let him, felt him, and all at once the warning wasn’t quite as easy to ignore.

The hand that Ed had put to his ass moved to grip a steel elbow. “Wait,” Roy murmured against Ed’s mouth, who buried his head into the crook of Roy’s neck.

“God, don’t make this into a big deal-” he rasped.

“I don’t think-” Roy started.

“Please just fucking _stop thinking_.” Ed pulled back but averted his eyes, blushing, his braid a mess and coming loose. “I’m sorry about the sappy shit okay, pretend I didn’t say it, it’s fine, I’m not expecting you to-”

“No, that’s not-” Roy interrupted, and they both stopped. He licked his lips and cupped Ed’s cheek. “What do you want from me Edward?”

He leveled Roy in his unashamed golden gaze. “Whatever you’re willing to give. Preferably with me in your bed, on my back,” he said.

Ed had been the instigator of the relationship from the beginning, as it should have been, because Roy never wanted to doubt for a moment that he did anything just because Roy wanted it. But even now, with Ed flat out telling him what he was after, Roy couldn’t ignore that grief and guilt were terrible company with which to make big decisions and, if he was being honest, he and Ed _both_ had a track record of acting rashly. It would be one thing for Roy to throw himself into bed with another person because he’d done it all before, but it was another for Ed to do the same, Ed who deserved so much more than trading his body for the brief chance to forget about the storm around them.

“I don’t want you to throw this part of yourself away just because you’re upset,” Roy said quietly, watching the confusion flit across Ed’s face as he pulled back.

“Part of me, as in what? My virginity?” Ed’s voice was near condescending, and Roy’s answering silence pulled a hollow laugh from him. “Mustang– for fuck’s sake, it’s a little late to save me from that.”

And no, that wasn’t quite it, because Roy already had a suspicion that Ed knew what he was doing. He was skilled with his hands and mouth and he was extraordinary from his body to his brain, and he had been set loose upon the country for the past five years. Roy really wasn’t surprised, and Ed didn’t seem bothered by the topic.

“I mean, maybe not in this context,” Ed added as he gestured between a particular region of their bodies and Roy knew he meant with another man. “But I know what I want, I know what I’m asking for.”

Roy’s heart was hammering in his chest as he tried again to get his thoughts out properly. “I think we can agree that the past few days have been some of the shittiest in our lives and I don’t want you to do this because of it. I don’t want you to regret me.”

“I could never do that,” Ed said softly. He squeezed Roy’s shoulders in his hands, so gentle with the automail that his eyes were fixed on. “I feel like- like this is only the beginning, and everything is about to go to shit, and I just wanna feel something other than like I’m drowning. I wanna feel _you_.” He cupped Roy’s face and brushed a thumb over his cheek. “Please.”

It shouldn’t have been like this. It shouldn’t have been because they were both hurting so badly they just wanted it to stop, even if for only a little while. It shouldn’t have been while Ed was so sick and so much uncertainty loomed over the days to come. But Roy was only human and Ed’s reassurance was all the more it took, so he stopped thinking.

He focused on Ed’s hand on his face and his wide eyes, his swollen lips pressed to his jaw where the bruise had since faded. Roy shuddered and kissed him, sliding his hands up the back of Ed’s thighs and grasping there. Ed sighed as if relieved. His arms encircled Roy's neck, legs hooking around his waist as the colonel heaved them off the couch. It wasn’t easy getting them both up the stairs, but Ed’s hands were in his hair and he made breathy little sounds each time their groins shifted together, and it was all the encouragement Roy needed to make the climb.

His bedroom door was closed so he pressed Ed against the wall next to it, sliding his hands further up his thighs to his ass and Ed made a noise that was something between a groan and a growl that Roy devoured. He could hear Ed scrabbling for the doorknob, the clink of metal on metal as he found it and turned, and Roy walked them through the doorway, hands busy kneading Ed’s ass as he maneuvered them to the bed. As soon as his back touched the sheets, Ed’s arms went from around Roy’s neck to yanking his shirt up and over, tugging impatiently as the colonel twisted his way out. Ed’s hands smoothed over Roy’s chest and down his stomach, along the edge of his military issue pants, thumbs dipping into the curve of his hips and just barely underneath the waist band. Roy ran a palm down Ed’s clothed chest and abs while the blond arched into his touch. The automail at his collarbone glinted from beneath his shirt collar and Roy was drawn to it.

Before the situation manifested itself Roy never bothered to wonder why Ed hated medical attention so much, even though it was a well-known fact that he was not an easy patient. Roy even had two weeks to ponder why the hospital would prefer for Ed to undergo outpatient treatment, but still didn’t get around to it until he was administering Ed’s first conscious IV in his home. Ed had trembled under his steady hand, eyes flashing like those of a cornered animal, and Roy was uncertain if he’d made the right decision, bringing Ed into his home and being responsible for his life in this way. When he caught sight of the bolt in Ed’s collarbone that locked the metal plate into place, he wanted to kick himself for taking so long to understand. How many hours of hellish operation had he gone through? How many times had he been poked with needles, inhaled the smell of antiseptic, been held down? Could anyone blame him?

Roy gently hooked his teeth around the plate, tongue laving the scars around the metal, and Ed gasped, fisting his automail hand into the sheets.

“Fuckin’- don’t have to do that,” he panted.

“I want to put my mouth on all of you,” Roy murmured against the edges of Ed’s skin, a little perplexed, wondering if he truly thought he was only touching the automail to make him feel better. He pressed a kiss to the bolt in Ed’s collarbone, to his neck and then the blush across his nose. Ed blushed even harder, mumbling about him being a sap, but eagerly returned the kiss Roy insinuated.

Roy gathered the hem of Ed's shirt, breaking their kiss before gently rucking it upwards, searching his face for permission. There was a brief hesitation before Ed raised his arms and arched his back, and as it slid up and off, Roy’s breath caught. Over Ed’s heart were the delicate but unmistakable lines of the circle he’d drawn, the scar fresh and dark. A small wedge of scar tissue disrupted the array.

“It, um…burned me,” Ed said quietly.

“Oh,” Roy said dumbly.

“I’d’ve told you, but I didn’t really know how to bring it up. Second degree, right over the heart so it healed quick though, not a big deal.” He pointed to the wedge piece. “I did that myself as soon as I was conscious enough.”

Roy placed his hand over the skin and pressed his palm to the array, Ed’s pec twitching at the touch.

“I’m sorry,” Roy said softly. He hadn’t known the array would burn – for a split second he considered drawing it on Ed’s shirt but he had no idea if it would have worked, there was the possibility of losing control between the fabric fibers and Ed’s skin and there was so little room for error that he didn’t think it to be a good idea. And here this was supposed to distract him from how delicate this life was, some of it already in irreparable shambles. The fact that he had almost lost who was now one of the last people in his life who meant something.

Ed frowned, covering Roy’s hand with his own. “Fuck off with that.” He slid their hands down his belly and over his clothed erection and leaned up close, mouth centimeters from Roy’s ear. “I like it.”

It was like flipping a switch to what needed to be felt before there wasn’t another chance, because Ed was right. Roy could feel it, buried beneath the fresh pain of loss, crawling in the pit of his stomach. This pain was only the beginning.

The rest of their clothes were shed without a second thought and if Ed hadn’t made it clear enough that he was not wholly inexperienced, he did then. He was unashamed of his naked body, only looking like he wanted to hide himself when Roy brushed his fingers and mouth over the scarred and steel pieces of him. Otherwise he was eager to touch and be touched, and not shy about letting Roy know what he liked. But Roy knew what Ed wanted now was very different from what Ed had done before, so he was soft and guiding, caught between closely watching Ed’s face and taking in all of him, stretched out, blushing and whimpering and pushing into his touch.

In his bed, with Ed on his back, on and over and _in_ him, Roy felt like a dam ready to burst, the flurry of exhaustion and grief threatening to crack him open and suffocate him. Ed was all that grounded him, impossibly tight and breathing short little pants in his ear, legs around his waist trembling. After a few moments of letting him adjust, Roy went to move, rocking his hips once but then freezing in near panic when Ed pressed his face into his shoulder with a sob. Oh if he’d hurt him if he fucked this up he would never-

“Don’t stop you idiot!” Ed wailed, rapping a heel against Roy’s back and glaring up at him through a wall of tears in anguish and not pain. The relief Roy felt was short lived, because fighting off his own heartache was hard enough without having it mirrored back at him. Throat tight, he kissed the tear tracks on Ed’s cheekbones and complied.

The first time was messy and desperate and neither of them lasted long. Roy succumbed to his grief alongside Ed, their sobs and moans intermixing as they rutted together, bodies shuddering at the contact. Ed’s fingernails raked marks into his shoulder while the automail promised to leave bruises, but Roy reveled in the sibling aches. They cursed and cried until they weren’t sure whose tears were whose, until the heat bloomed into sweat and they both felt the animal rise within them.

The second was slower and sweeter, like the first cleansing breath after a breakdown. Ed straddled his lap, heat pressed between their bellies, and foreheads together, they rocked. Roy’s hands were on Ed’s ass and Ed’s arms were around his neck and it was like riding an ocean wave, gasping into each other’s mouths between kisses and thrusts and rolls of their hips. They repeatedly edged up against the breaking point and then fell back, jaws clenched and bodies shaking, until Ed opened his eyes and looked straight into Roy, who cupped his cheek and whispered to him how beautiful he was. Ed arched his back with a sob and they were both gone.

Later, after Roy was dropped by his post-orgasm marionette strings back into reality, after cleaning them up and snuffing out the fire downstairs and returning to bed, did he start to feel somewhat human again, albeit one who was so physically and emotionally exhausted he wasn’t sure how he was still awake. Ed was curled up on his side, chest peeking out of the covers, and Roy again laid his palm over the scar on his chest. Ed’s eyes flickered, sleepy and unfocused, but he still smiled in Roy’s direction. His heart lurched at the sight and he wished he could just pause time, right there.

But even when life stalled, the world kept turning. Morning was coming, and he would have to let this go to face it.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I live. This chapter ended up being a bit much so I had to split it, though the other half is still not complete.

Post-funeral sex seemed like a good idea at the time, but as Roy stared at his shirtless reflection and the neat outline of a love bite on the front of his shoulder, he decided that it also being pre-doctor’s appointment sex should have been taken into more serious consideration. He didn’t remember leaving any marks on Ed, but he also didn’t remember receiving this one, and that made his heart sink. As if waking up late wasn’t bad enough.

He pressed his fingers to the spot. “Fuck,” he said, voice strangely calm despite his rising panic.

“Wh- oh shit,” he heard Ed say, and startled at Ed’s reflection behind his own. He stood in the doorway of the ensuite with his hair loose and stark naked. Roy hadn’t had the chance to admire him properly in the dim and dark of the night before and the sight of gleaming gold and silver stole his breath and train of thought. Ed wasn’t meant to be so pale and hadn’t regained all the weight lost during his initial hospital stay, but he was stunning nonetheless, and Roy knew his reflection didn’t even do him justice.

Their eyes met in the mirror, Roy’s fingers still pressed to the mark, and Ed’s hand slowly traveled to the same spot on his own shoulder. His eyes widened. “Shit!” he yelped, and frantically tried to look at his own neck, which would have been funny had Roy not been trying to suppress utter internal panic. Best friend dead? Check. Sleep with underage subordinate? Check. Get court martialed after the doctor notices?

The little hand in Roy’s mind hovered over the box with a piece of chalk. He was very possibly fucked.

Ed lunged past him and clambered onto the counter, right up to the mirror that spanned from countertop to ceiling. Unabashed by his naked state, Ed planted a knee on each side of the sink and gathered his hair up, bright eyes sweeping over his reflected neck and collarbones. Sun spilled in through the long window above the shower and he was just _radiant_. Roy wasn’t sure yet, but he was either having one of the worst or best mornings of his life.

Ed paused and caught himself in the eye. He hesitated, expression unreadable, before looking himself over again, slower this time. “I don’t see anything,” he said, and slipped off the counter with more care than he’d taken to get up there. “Do you?” he asked as he gathered his mane over his automail shoulder and offered his back to Roy. To Roy’s relief it was marred only by scars, proving at least half of his memory was functioning properly the night before. He longed to reach out and brush his fingers over them again.

“No,” he breathed.

“Thank fuck,” Ed said as he sagged against the bathroom sink. “That would have been hard to explain I think.”

That was the understatement of the year. Roy joined him in leaning against the counter, willing his heart to slow down.

Beside him Ed sighed and rubbed his head. “I hate to ask if you’ve seen your back?” he asked, voice hopeful but timid. Roy looked at him incredulously and thought that maybe he was joking, but Ed was looking at him with the same sort of guilt he wore when he knew the building blowing up was indeed his fault. “I’ll take that as a no,” Ed answered for him.

Roy looked to the ceiling, sent a silent plea out to the universe, and turned his back to the mirror. He couldn’t stop his sharp intake of breath. Several sets of scratches were raked into one shoulder blade while groups of finger sized bruises dotted the other, faint but angry against his pale skin.

Ed buried his face in his arms, nothing visible save for the pink tips of his ears. “I’m sorry. It’s completely within your right to yell at me,” he said, voice muffled. He raised his head, brow furrowed. “Actually, if I could get some pants before you start yelling, that’d be sweet.”

Roy leaned back against the counter and scrubbed a hand down his face. The bite mark was more difficult to recall but he _definitely_ remembered thinking his shoulders were getting marked up, and it wasn’t like he had attempted to do anything about it. “I’m not going to yell at you Ed,” he promised.

Ed considered him for a moment, suspicious. “I still want pants,” he decided, pushing off the counter and heading for the bedroom. Roy lingered to look at himself for a bit longer, because even though it was one of the dumbest things he’d ever allowed to happen, there was still some primal part of his brain that was pleased about being marked by Edward Elric. Roy touched the bite mark again and sighed.

He had thrown on a pair of pants as soon as he’d gotten up and so just observed as Ed gathered his discarded clothing from off the floor and within the covers. Having to get dressed after sharing a bed was certainly new. Roy watched in fascination as the smooth curves of flesh and steel he had been lucky enough to touch disappeared beneath fabric, as the hair he’d mussed up and let wild was returned to its braid.

Only once he was dressed did Ed finally seemed embarrassed, a flush high on his cheeks as he fidgeted and averted his eyes. “Hate to be self-important about it but I’d rather you yell than stay silent.”

Roy felt the last of the adrenaline leaving him. He was suddenly exhausted and just wanted to slip back under the covers more than anything but was worried he wouldn’t get back up if he did. He leaned against the bathroom doorframe and rubbed his forehead. “I think right now we need to worry about getting to your doctor’s appointment. We can talk about this later.”

Ed opened his mouth to protest but his eyes flicked to Roy’s shoulder and he went quiet. “Right. Okay. I’ll just,” he said, gesturing to the door, “meet you downstairs. 10:30, right?”

Roy nodded. “Right.”

Ed stalled and looked like he had something more to say, but then slipped out the door instead. Roy very much hated watching him leave.

He went through his routine on autopilot. He expected to find Ed pacing around the first floor, as he had taken to doing with his gradual return of nervous energy, but there was no sign of him. Roy peeked into the den on his way to slip on his coat and shoes and found him, dozing sitting up on his makeshift couch-bed, trench and boots and all. Ed needed all the rest he could get and seeing his face unpinched with worry was rare, so Roy didn’t dare disturb him. He crept past Ed to the window to see if their driver had arrived yet, but the driveway was empty, to his relief.

There was a definite lack of soldiers willing to drive Edward “I’ll either have a tantrum or medical emergency” Elric, so the duty would likely fall to the female soldier who had driven them days previously. Roy was thankful he hadn’t tried to request Havoc, because getting anywhere near Hawkeye in his current condition sent a sharp spike of fear through him. If she found out, there’s no way she wouldn’t try to shoot him. She would probably aim for the bite mark. It was even conveniently located in an open, non-vital area.

He shuddered. He doubted Havoc would have agreed to drive them anyway.

The wind picked up, sweeping swathes of yellow leaves off the trees and onto yards and pavement. The sun was shining but a dark sky loomed in the distance. Roy was content to lose himself to the world outside, so zoned he didn’t notice Ed beside him until the blond planted his forehead to the trim around the window with a thunk. He was either getting used to Ed randomly appearing or had simply exhausted his supply of adrenaline, but he managed to look annoyed instead of leaping out of his skin. Ed’s bangs shadowed his face and it was lost on him.

“Maybe you should yell though?” Ed suggested. “You’ve yelled at me for less.”

Roy looked at the still-empty driveway and then his watch. “I’m not sure when I lead you to believe ‘talk about this later’ meant ‘bring it up when our driver is already late’.”

Ed’s shoulders stiffened, head still planted against the trim. “At least let me say I’m sorry so I can start feeling a little less shitty.”

“ _I_ should be the one apologizing,” Roy said, and Ed snorted.

“The hell for? Having more self-control than I apparently do?”

“For letting this happen,” Roy replied, which was ambiguous and dangerous, especially when given to Edward Elric.

Ed’s bangs slipped away when he looked up, confused. “ _This_ ,” he said with a frown, as if by tasting the word he found its meaning. “ _This_ as in, us fucking twice last night?”

Ed’s forwardness still had the ability to take him aback. Roy’s breath caught and he hesitated just long enough to pull a noise of frustration from Ed, who pointed at him in that dramatic sort of way he loved to do.

“Mustang you asshole, _stop_ guilt tripping. You give yourself way too much credit for what goes on in this relationship.”

Roy blinked. “I- what?”

“I mean- I know we’re still new to you and whatever,” Ed said with a wave of his gloved hand, as if he had somehow spent more time in the relationship than Roy had, and with a brain that recorded and dissected every detail it saw fit, maybe he had. “So maybe you haven’t even realized it yet, but I’ve always instigated. _Always_. You would’ve been content with a few more shots and going to bed. I was just as much a part of the decision as you were. So don’t try to tell yourself you ‘gave in’ or what the fuck ever, because _I_ convinced you.” He looked out the window and shrugged. “Maybe it wasn’t right of me but I was already trying to get your attention.”

The confession fell heavy to Roy’s ears despite the ease with which Ed told him. As reality rearranged itself into better clarity, Roy realized that Ed – with his hair washed and down, wearing Roy’s clothes – had been testing him the morning of the death notice, and he’d walked right into it. Ed bringing up his handcuff incident suddenly made more sense, and Roy smirked. “Ed, was trying to discuss one of my least dignified moments your idea of flirting?”

Cheeks colored, Ed glared out the window and refused to answer.

Roy clasped his hands behind his back and watched a gust of wind rally more leaves from their branches. “I’m aware you instigate everything. As it should be. I was referring to the fact that I knew you were possibly leaving marks, and I didn’t stop you.”

“Oh.” Ed’s face was steaming. “You could’ve told me to shut up at any point you know,” he mumbled.

“And stop you on such a passionate monologue? Never.”

Ed scratched his head, embarrassed. “So you let me do that to you,” he concluded.

That wiped the smirk off Roy’s face, and it was replaced by something softer. “Most of it, yes.”

Ed nodded slowly. “Okay. So…” he trailed off, unsure of what exactly needed to be done with that information.

Roy put his hands in his coat pockets and took a deep breath. “I was very short sighted last night.”

Ed scoffed, but Roy didn’t miss the quick intake of breath, the pinch in his brow. “And you were so damn worried about _me_ regretting _you_ -”

“ _No_ , Ed,” Roy insisted in mild horror. Okay, ambiguity clearly did not mix with Edward Elric. He picked his words more carefully. “I feel guilty for risking what the team and I have worked so hard for, but I absolutely do not regret you,” he explained, watching as Ed’s face relaxed a bit. “We took a risk. You’re under regular medical scrutiny– if I had slipped and left a mark, if they somehow found out- it would get very, very ugly. Fraternization is something I may be able to recover from. But with an underage subordinate?” Roy shook his head, swallowing down the bitter laughter that bubbled up in his chest, because it wasn’t funny at all. “No chance.”

Ed set his jaw. “I’m an adult.”

“We may have decided a handful of months was arbitrary, but those three months make me the legal adult who would be held responsible. Whether or not we chose to share the responsibility is irrelevant in the eyes of the law.”

Ed was still staring out the window, his profile revealing just how long his eyelashes were. Roy followed his gaze to the sky that was beginning to gather clouds.

“I promised Hawkeye –  and through her everyone on the team – for absolute discretion and care. And I was careless.”

“Then you have to say that I was too,” Ed demanded.

Roy did not, and Ed glared.

“Stop making excuses for me,” he growled, gripping the window sill. “Ask me if _I_ would have stopped _you_.”

Roy pinched the bridge of his nose. “I would rather not,” he answered stiffly. Thankfully Ed dropped it and they sat in silence for a couple of minutes.

Ed sighed, brows still pinched. “I worried, but you- kept your mouth on my face or the metal and I just- I trusted you. And I don’t think I made the wrong decision,” he said.

Roy felt himself thaw a bit from those words.

“But I also think you’re right,” Ed continued. “Big unnecessary risks aren’t smart. And what if you got sent to the hospital tomorrow for some freak thing? Those marks are just- it’s pretty clear I made them and- oh fuck, this isn’t helping is it?” Ed asked sheepishly as a fresh chill washed over Roy, and he sucked in a sharp breath. “I’m sorry,” Ed said.

Roy wondered if the only way to get a true apology from Ed was being on his receiving end of accidental bodily harm.

Ed leaned into Roy’s side and Roy slipped an arm around his waist. They watched leaves skitter across the ground. “What are we doing then?” Ed asked softly.

Roy longed to lean down and press his lips to blond hair, to Ed’s temple, his cheek bone. He gave Ed a little squeeze. “We are two people who realized they fit together at the wrong time. Just a little too early.”

“Occupational hazard of geniuses,” Ed sighed. “Two people who sometimes share a bed and occasionally suck face, but mostly enjoy each other’s company,” he mused further. “And who don’t have sex,” he finished plainly. Roy felt the first real smile he’d given in days form. 

“Until you are discharged and well-”

“Teeth to myself,” Ed finished. “Watch my mouth in front of Corporal Can’t-Drive.”

“Edward,” Roy said in warning.

Ed huffed. As if summoned, a military vehicle slowed and turned into the driveway. They watched as it narrowly missed the wrought iron fence that surrounded the yard and came to a jerky stop at the top of the drive.

“Lord,” Roy breathed, and Ed snickered.

When they got to the front door Ed lingered and made quick consideration of the inside of the house. “You have five couches but never any guests,” he said and looked at Roy expectantly, as if the least the colonel could do was explain himself. He could tell Ed the furniture was new but placed just how it had always been, or that the house had space for that many so there they were. But he was tired, and sad, and none of it mattered.

Roy nodded. “So I do.”

Ed shook his head. “Madness,” he declared, and walked out the door. It took Roy far too long to remember that couch number five was in the study. Having more couches than one could even remember certainly was some sort of madness.

* * *

When Roy was younger, his brother told him that a doctor could look at a person and just know. Roy asked what they would know, and to his horror his brother replied ‘ _everything_ ’.

He was no longer a preschooler worried his parents would find out about the junk food he’d been sneaking, and he knew better than to believe a doctor could know everything just by looking at someone, but they did deal with people for a living, so those old words left him unsettled nonetheless. Roy didn’t look at shirtless Ed and the scar upon his chest that made his own heart hurt, and instead thanked the ceiling tiles for his apparent plethora of self-control.

Temperature. Blood pressure. Spirometer. The doctor went through his usual routine without a hint of intending to do something different, but Ed still watched his every move with sharp distrust.

Gray inspected the numbers from Ed’s vitals. “Total lung volume still down,” he said, tapping his pen on the clipboard before setting them on the table next to Ed, who bristled. “Let’s give you a listen.”

Ed hissed and glared when the stethoscope was put to his naked back but inhaled when he was told. He winced at the end of the breath and the doctor frowned.

“Still having pain?”

Ed let the breath out and placed a hand to his sternum, wincing again. “Still my ribs,” he said.

Gray nodded and made a quick note. “That’s how you know the CPR was done correctly.”

“Lucky me,” Ed said flatly as the doctor moved the diaphragm to the other side of his back.

“Inhale.”

Ed did and managed it more smoothly than the first time, but the doctor’s frown deepened anyway.

“I’m still picking up on irregular sounds. The lesions may be having a difficult time healing.” He slung the stethoscope back around his neck and picked up his pen. “We were tapering off your breathing treatment but I want you back to a full dose.” He scribbled something onto Ed’s chart then leveled Ed in his stare. “Is there anything you would like to confess, Mr. Elric?”

If Roy hadn’t already known that was the doc’s offhand way of asking if there were new or worsening symptoms that Ed hadn’t shared, he would have had a minor heart attack.

“Fuck no,” Ed scoffed. Gray made one last note on Ed’s chart and the blond’s eyebrows shot up. He grinned. “Did you just write ‘fuck no’ in my file?”

The doctor’s smirk was almost imperceptible as he tucked his pen into his pocket, Ed’s chart in hand as he opened the door. “Pick up your medication at the pharmacy downstairs. I have no other concerns and will see you back in a week for a progress check and chest x-ray,” he said and slipped out with a wave, the door clicking behind him.

“He totally did,” Ed said with a grin, and Roy breathed a deep sigh of relief that may have sounded a bit like a laugh.

After Ed dressed they were directed back to the waiting room while the medication was prepared. Waiting rooms embodied everything Roy hated about medical buildings, with their fluorescent lights and green flecked linoleum tiles, stark white walls and plastic chairs, and the very little comfort they offered to those who needed it most. He looked at Ed, beautifully bright in the chair next to him, and wondered what it would be like to have to leave him here, when his only solace would be hard edges and cold surfaces.

By the look on Ed’s face he was sharing a similar sentiment, eyes sharp and jaw working. "If I have to die, it’s not going to be lying in one of these places,” he said, catching Roy off guard. The way it was phrased and how tired Ed sounded made his skin prickle unpleasantly.

“Ed, what-”

“Elric?” the pharmacist called.

Ed hopped up from his chair without sparing Roy a glance, and as Roy watched him retrieve the script, he decided to let it go. Ed’s unfiltered observations weren’t news and considering he had spent far too much time in this place over the past few days, what he said really couldn’t be considered unusual.

Roy rose from his chair as Ed returned to his side, stuffing the prescription in his trench pocket. They exited the double doors to spotty sunshine, a little less wind, and their ride waiting at the curb. Corporal Harlow, whose name Roy made a point to learn that morning at the prospect of seeing her more often as well as his refusal to call her Corporal Can’t-Drive, was concerned about dropping them off on the sidewalk in front of his home but after seeing her maneuver the driveway earlier, Roy insisted.

They were halfway up the drive when Ed stopped, so suddenly that Roy tripped over his own feet to keep from bowling over him.

“Ed, what are you-” Roy followed Ed’s stare to the porch steps, where two people sat waiting for them.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Ed said as the pair of strangers stood.

The person closest to them was a young man in a messenger’s uniform. It was hard to tell from the distance but Roy felt sure it was the same messenger he had stumbled upon the day Ed went down in his apartment. The young man’s eyes were the size of saucers so Roy decided he was probably correct. Nick, was it? That sounded right.

The other man was the source of Ed’s seething expletive. He wore glasses and a black vest with matching slacks and a brown overcoat, was broad-shouldered and seemed taller than Roy. The wind picked up and a blond ponytail billowed out behind him, and Roy realized with a jolt that he _knew_ this man. All he had to compare was a faded and fuzzy photograph, but even if he had never seen the picture, the resemblance between Hohenheim and his son was uncanny.

The little hand in Roy’s mind flipped the chalkboard over, where ‘meet estranged Elric father’ was written, and checked the box.

Hohenheim of Light was on his front porch, Roy was having one of the most bizarre twenty-four hours of his existence, and Ed’s eyes were looking for blood. He was already stomping up the drive, shoulders hunched and breath ragged. This was not good.

“Ed-” Roy started, briefly on the young man’s heels. His mind was already calculating just what it would take for him to make it to the stairs, unlock the front door, retrieve the sedative-

“Back the fuck off!” Ed spat over his shoulder, stopping Roy in his tracks though Ed kept moving. “I’m warning you. Back. Off.” He turned his attention back to Hohenheim, and if Roy hadn’t known Ed to be adamantly against murder, he would have been genuinely concerned for the man’s safety. The messenger looked apprehensive and much more worried than the elder Elric, as if he thought himself the focus of Ed’s rage.

Ed squared himself up at the bottom of the steps, fists clenched. “What the FUCK are you doing here?!” he shouted. Roy was grateful most of his neighbors were at work or school.

The messenger snapped his posture to attention. “J-just delivering a message Sir!”

“Not _you_ ,” Ed snapped with a dismissive wave. “The asshole _next_ to you.”

Hohenheim frowned at his son. “Edward is the language really nece-”

“You fucking _bet_ it is,” Ed said, and there was the damn pointing again. “I thought it was pretty fuckin’ clear I didn’t want to see you again, but here you are!”

“Yes, our prior agreement would have been ideal,” his father said flatly, possibly just to quell some of Ed’s wrath.

“As for _you_ ,” Ed said, jabbing the same finger at a pale looking Nick, “thanks for breaking some of my ribs! I’m too pissed off to deal with you!”

Hohenheim took a step forward, a defensive arm coming down between Ed and the messenger. “Edward, he saved-”

“I REALLY DON’T CARE RIGHT NOW! WASTING MY FUCKING TIME!” Ed shouted, wind milling one of his arms at Nick, who scrambled down the steps, away from Ed’s ire, and over to Roy. He was a little shaky but otherwise unharmed.

“I was just, uh, here to deliver this,” he stammered, presenting Roy with an envelope with the military seal.

“You’ve caught him at a bad time, I’m afraid,” Roy said as he accepted the piece of mail and tipped the poor kid two large notes. “Again,” he added, acknowledging the fact that Ed had probably ruined his day twice now.

“He WHAT?!” Ed shouted in response to something Hohenheim said, garnering the attention of the colonel and messenger. His fiery golden eyes were locked onto Nick. “You! You told this bastard _everything?_ ”

“I’m, uh…glad you’re feeling better?” Nick offered, and Ed’s responding glower made him flinch and scurry down the driveway without another glance. Roy watched him go with a bit of sympathy. He wondered if he’d have trouble finding drivers _and_ messengers from now on.

“ _Edward_ ,” Hohenheim admonished.

Ed’s lip curled in response. “No. No _way._ You don’t get to _parent_ me whenever the hell you decide to show up,” he spat. “You know Al’s been missing for almost a month? Why don’t you put those parental instincts to better use and find your kid, old man.”

If Hohenheim was bothered by Ed’s words, he didn’t let it show. “I am aware of the situation now, yes. There’s been a complication.”

There was a stretched silence. “A what?” Ed asked, in a way that he knew exactly what his father had just said but was not happy to hear it.

Hohenheim nodded and adjusted his glasses. “A complication, unfortunately. It seems I let my heart get the better of me one too many times,” he said with a sheepish smile.

“What did you do?” Ed’s face was horrified and his question sounded more like an accusation. His expression and voice lowered dangerously. “Where. Is. Al.”

Hohenheim leveled Ed in a stern stare. “What did _you_ do, Edward? To have a seizure and stop breathing?” he asked, causing his son to gape.

Hohenheim fixed his tired eyes on Roy, who had inched somewhat closer but still gave Ed a good ten feet of clearance. “Hello Colonel,” he greeted, as if they had met before. “I heard you saved his life. Thank you.”

Ed’s surprise returned to anger. “Which you only know because you lucked the fuck out. If that guy hadn’t been here you wouldn’t know _anything_.”

“I still would have known you tried to do it yourself.” Ed’s golden eyes flew open wide, shocked, and Hohenheim nodded, face the shade of sad disappoint only found in parents . He stooped down to grab the handle of a suitcase that Roy hadn’t noticed until then. “After I specifically told you not to and you _promised_ me, Ed."

“I just-” Ed started and stopped as his father began to descend the steps. He made no move to back away, even when Hohenheim loomed before him. “I thought I could just- enough to get me through the enlistment-” Ed said, as if admitting something secret. His anger cracked, uncertainty and something like fear swimming beneath.

Roy was rightfully confused and Ed looked about the same, as was usual when his mouth came up with something only his subconscious seemed to remember. He didn’t even recoil when Hohenheim placed a hand on his head, eyes narrow and hard.

“Don’t. Do it. Again,” his father said, each word pointed like a barb. Ed didn’t look or move away from him, face stricken, and slowly, Hohenheim’s face softened in return. The man suddenly looked very tired, and very sad. “I wish we had more time, but I’ve been noticed and don’t want to call attention to you.”

Ed snapped out of his daze and jerked away from his father’s touch. “What the FUCK is going on?!” he shouted, hands balled into fists, and his feet took up a fighting stance that made Roy’s stomach roll in apprehension. “How do you know? How did you even _find_ me?”

“I let myself into your apartment and this address was within your notes, which I gathered, as well as a few other things,” Hohenheim said, offering the suitcase to Ed, who accepted it without hesitation but at the same time, confusion. Hohenheim took the moment of distraction to set off, nodding to Roy as he calmly walked past.

Ed snapped out of his daze and let the suitcase fall to the ground with a thunk. “YOU’VE BEEN IN MY APARTMENT YOU CRYPTIC FUCK?!” he screeched.

Hohenheim was unfazed and, judging by his smile, possibly even amused by Ed’s reaction, and he kept on walking down the drive. Ed looked like he wanted nothing more than to take off after his father, but Roy saw how his chest heaved as he clung to the porch rail, cheeks tinged red and teeth bared. “Here’s a question for you, you rotten father! WHERE THE FUCK IS YOUR SON?”

That did get Hohenheim to stop and turn, glasses glinting. “I can assume I’ll find out very soon,” he replied. With a wave over his shoulder, he stepped out onto the sidewalk and disappeared behind the neighbor’s privacy hedges. Roy was completely bewildered by the entire interaction but he took off down the driveway in pursuit despite, intent on dragging the other man back by his ponytail if needed. But when he hit the sidewalk and looked down the street, Hohenheim was gone. He sprinted the two houses down to the intersection and looked both ways, but the man was nowhere to be found.

Roy returned to where Ed sat at the bottom of the porch steps, next to his father’s suitcase, arms crossed loosely over his knees and looking despondent.

“He’s gone,” Roy informed him, but the blond didn’t seem surprised by Hohenheim’s abrupt appearance and departure.

“Welcome to my life,” Ed said, voice thick. “Forever watching him fuck off to somewhere more important than his family.” Without his anger Ed looked shaken and drained, and Roy still worried that it had been too much for him. "I can't remember the last time I said fuck so much. It felt good."

“Are you okay?”

“Weirder shit has happened. ’m fine.” Ed put the heels of his palms to the step to push himself up but flinched with the effort. “Some pain meds would be nice. And not that PRN shit, I want the good stuff.”

Roy cracked a smile. “Of course,” he said, extending his left hand in offering. A strong gust of wind whipped through, leaves swirling and dancing. Ed’s eyes crinkled at the gesture and allowed Roy to haul him to his feet, suitcase and all.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you’re ready for the beginning of the end. Some more Brotherhood elements mixed in here. Warning for blood and mention of the dark sexual themes.
> 
> I’m working on a side project, so this next chapter will probably take a while. Thank you for sticking with me, you guys are golden.

A fire flicked and swayed in the great room fireplace, but Ed still shook as he accepted two pills of the good stuff and a glass of water from Roy, who had a seat next to him.

“I wasn’t…aware you’d seen your father recently,” Roy said carefully. Ed made a face as he tossed the pills back and chased them with a drink.

“While I was on leave,” he said. “Here in Central at first, then for a while in Resembool.” He stared into the glass. “Al was annoyingly in love with him, like he deserves it. But I don’t remember much else.”

Roy wanted to ask what Hohenheim had been talking about, but he worried Ed had over taxed himself. He breathed too hard and fast and stared vacantly at the suitcase on the coffee table in front of him. Roy decided to hold off about of his father for when Ed wasn’t actively fighting for air.

“But you remembered the messenger,” he said instead, nodding to the letter next to the suitcase.

Ed looked at it and blinked. “Huh. Guess so. Memory loss is a fucking trip.” He downed the rest of the water and set the glass down. He streted his fingers a few times before moving to unclasp the suitcase, but then hesitated.

“You don’t have to do this right now,” Roy said quietly, and Ed gripped the old leather harder.

“I’m fine. I just- am tired of being disappointed. Is all.” He cleared his throat and flipped the tabs open. “Might as well see what kind of bone the crazy old bastard threw me.”

It looked to be an assortment of items off someone’s desk. Ed removed the boxes first. There were two of them, brown and square and the length of his hand. From within the first one he plucked a vial and tilted it, watching its contents slide from end to the other. Whatever it was appeared gray and grainy, with jagged white fragments rolling within the dust. “This isn’t sand,” he stated, looking at Roy for affirmation.

Roy, who knew the difference between sand and worse, nodded. “Ashes.”

Ed looked back to the vial in humorous disbelief. “That asshole literally threw me a god damn bone,” he said, and he started to smile, but suddenly his expression went blank and his jaw snapped shut with a click.

Roy did not like that. He didn’t like the way Ed stared at it at it as if he were seeing a ghost, or the way his hand trembled harder than the rest of him as he returned the tube to its box and closed the lid. One item down and Roy already felt unease prickling his skin.

Ed left his hand on the box for several seconds before moving on to the next one. It was another vial that, once he had barely unscrewed the cap, was clearly ammonia. Ed wrinkled his nose and returned it to its box in haste.

The first of the books was what appeared to be a journal with a thick, intricately tooled leather cover and matching binding. Once undone and opened they discovered nothing but blank pages, to their confusion.

“I feel like I should start writing this shit down. The hell,” Ed said and set the book next to the boxes.

The second book was old, black cover worn gray, gold leaf lettering still intact. The title was in Xingese and below it, Amestrian.

“Alkahestry?” Roy inquired.

Ed nodded. “Alchemy’s eastern, medically-inclined cousin,” he said, running his hand over the cover and opening it, his father’s name scrawled on the inside. “My father is, uh…well versed.” He turned to the first page and deadpanned. “And of course it’s in Xingese,” he said flatly, flipping through a few pages to confirm. “He’s never been much of a helpful presence in my life, to say the least.”

Ed flipped the book shut and set it on the blank text. He paused with his hand hovering over one of the boxes, staring at it like it was bothering him. “Ammonia. Commonly used for agricultural purposes, household cleaners, treating metal, tanning leather, and developing photochemical processes," he said, rattling off one of his textbook definitions as if urging the chemical to pick one of those options or otherwise tell him why it was there. Roy imagined if anyone could get chemicals to speak to them, it would be Edward Elric. But the ammonia wasn’t talking, and Ed was at a loss. He moved on to the last of the contents; several packets of notes that he apparently wanted to spread out on the table. “Here,” he said, passing the letter from the messenger to Roy between his first two fingers. “For you.”

Roy had just assumed it was for Ed and felt a little silly for not having checked. He took the envelope and looked at the military’s wax seal, then flipped it and glanced at the addressee. “Ed, this is to you.”

Ed had already tossed all but one packet of notes where the letter had been sitting. “I don’t feel like dealing with it,” he said dismissively, settling in with the notes that were admittedly probably much more interesting than whatever the military had to say. “Lemme know if it’s important.”

More amused than annoyed, Roy ripped open the end of the envelope and pulled the letter out. The message was short and simple.

_Case MP9310-Alphonse Elric, suspended until further notice._

A chill washed down his shoulders, pooling as dread in the pit of his stomach. No. It couldn’t be. They couldn’t be giving up. They couldn’t sentence Al to certain death. They couldn’t throw Maes away like his death meant nothing. By the time Roy realized he’d been so concerned with Ed’s state of mind that he hadn’t bothered to look at his own, it was too late. Something in him gave. It overrode his control, his logic, his empathy, until all he had left was the sudden burning desperation to make sure his friend hadn’t died in vain.

Ed’s subconscious had an answer. Roy had seen it when they purposefully tried to prompt lost memories, when Ed sedated himself, when Ed confessed under his father’s hand, and just then when Ed had looked at the vial of ashes. The triggers seemed to come at random.

Roy crumpled the empty envelope and stared at the ruined paper in his fist. “What did you do?” he asked lowly.

“What?” Ed asked, looking up from the notes.

Roy looked up. Ed was staring at him in a mix of concern and apprehension. “Hohenheim said you ‘tried it on your own’. What did you do?” he pressed. He could feel it, the fury in his chest like a ball of yarn that was rapidly unraveling, tangling in his limbs.

Ed sucked in a breath and winced, face pinched when he shook his head and said, “I don’t know.”

“You said someone helped you and Al use the stone. Who. Were. They.”

“I don’t-”

“Did you make a deal with Dante?”

Ed froze, eyes immense, capturing him in an animalistic stare. “What,” he breathed, “did you just say?”

There it was.

They’d both been half asleep, with Ed already overly sedated, so what he’d said might not have meant a thing, but Roy was no holds barred. He had to try. “’She should have kept her end of the deal’,” he quoted, watching Ed’s face turn from vacant to horrified. “Did you-”

Ed’s eyes went glassy and he dropped his notes. “It was a fair trade!” he cried, hands coming up into his bangs. “It was a fair trade, I did everything right, I did everything she said, I-”

“What was the deal? What did she do?”

Ed seemed to be stuck in it and wasn’t listening, just rambling. “I didn’t know, you have to know that I didn’t, you have to believe me, I swear-” he choked, curling in on himself.

 _“Edward!”_ Roy snapped, in his military voice, the colonel voice, the one that made cadets shrink like deflated balloons and even unsettled Hawkeye, but Ed was well and completely gone.

“I would do anything for Al, I would do anything-”

“What did you _do_ , Ed?” Roy pressed, desperation cutting an edge to his voice.

Ed’s eyes flashed, and the moment was gone as quickly as it and the others had come, leaving him quiet and shaken, fingers still tangled in his hair and gripping so hard it had to hurt.

 _No no no no no no._ “You know who did this!” Roy roared in frustration, slamming the letter to the table and making Ed flinch.

“NO I DON’T!” Ed screamed back. He broke into a coughing fit and finally let go of his hair to tuck his face into his elbow. He came up with tears flecked in the corners of his eyes and wiped his mouth on his shirt sleeve.

Roy knew what it was like for the past to be so poisonous that it hurt. But the only thing he could feel was the anguish burning in his blood. It turned his heart and words to stone and settled numb in his fingertips. It was a miracle he was able to pick up the letter again at all. The message hadn’t changed. It stared back at him, mocking his friend’s death, threatening Al’s life. He wanted to crumple it into the most compact ball his hands could manage and pitch it into the fire. “If there was ever a time to remember absolutely anything, it would be now.”

They stared at each other for a solid ten seconds, Ed’s chest heaving between ticks of the grandfather clock and crackling of the fire, his eyes rimmed in red. “I don’t understand,” he finally said.

“They’ve put a stop on Al’s case,” Roy informed him, holding out the letter.

Ed scrambled to take it. “What? Why?”

“Why do you think, Ed? Because it’s certainly not because they found him.”

Roy regretted the words as soon as they were out. They woke him up. The rage that Ed wasn’t even the source of was suddenly gone, leaving him feeling hoarse and wrung out and worthless. He had just attempted to forcefully yank information from Ed without any permission or concern. It wasn’t within his right. He could have hurt him, if he hadn’t already. Riza wouldn’t have even used misguided on him. He was an absolute asshole, and she ought to shoot him in the shoulder _and_ both feet. It would probably sting less than the look on Ed’s face, one of utter betrayal.

“Ed, I’m-”

Ed ignored him. He stood and began to throw everything into the suitcase with shaking hands. “I am fucking terrified that my brother is probably not coming home. Of the very likely possibility whoever murdered Hughes already-” he stopped and took several shuddering breaths before slamming the suitcase shut and clasping it. “I fucked up. I can’t remember what I did, I’ve made myself sick trying, but I _can’t._ I can’t even remember what Al _looked like_ after.” He grabbed the handle of the suitcase, finger coming up to point at Roy. “And you…just because you _think_ you know what it’s like doesn’t give you the right to-” his voice broke, and for a moment Roy though he would cry, but Ed let his hand drop and glared. “Fuck you,” he spat. He turned on his heel and stomped toward the den.

Roy moved to stand. “Your IV-”

“I’ve got it,” Ed said coldly. He retreated into the room.

Roy didn’t move from his spot for what felt like hours, even though the clock told him he had only been wallowing in his self-hatred for twenty minutes. He wished he could just open the clock door and wind the minute hand back and try again, try to not be such a fuck up. He scrubbed his hands over his face and back into his hair, then rose and approached the den, but the sheet had made a reappearance. He wasn’t surprised. Ed had trusted him, a fragile thing that he didn’t give to just anyone, and Roy had gone and stuck his claws through it. He wouldn’t want to see him, either.

He didn’t know how to go about attempting to fix what he’d done. He did know there wasn’t any chance he would be welcome in Ed’s presence until tomorrow, and even then it was a big fat maybe but probably not. His fingers itched for the bottle, but he couldn’t. Not like he had the night before, not when he would have to put himself to bed upstairs while Ed was downstairs, far away and all alone.

Sleep shouldn’t have been easy to come by, but he was exhausted. He fell into dreams of Al in the armor, scrubbing and gowning and gloving like a surgeon, with the suitcase on a steel table in the middle of the operating theatre. No matter how many surgical instruments Al tried, he couldn't get it open.

* * *

Roy woke to the sound of Ed coughing and groggily reached for the spot next to him. He was confused to find it cold and empty but as he rapidly blinked away sleep, he remembered that Ed had taken to the den for the night. Then he remembered why, and felt like shit.

The bedside clock read just past midnight, and Roy watched a few minutes tick by before Ed’s coughing resumed in increased intensity. It sounded horrible and hardly gave him a break to breathe. Worry was just starting to creep in when Ed let out a muffled sound of pain, and Roy decided he would rather Ed be angry with being checked on, than to just lay there listening to him hurt.

Roy swung his legs over the side of the bed and stumbled from his room to the stairs, stiff legged and drowsy. When he reached the landing, there was a smash of glass followed by a wail. It snapped a jolt of panic through his bones and sent him thundering down the stairs, sweeping through the great room without bothering to take it into account. He knew exactly what Ed had broken.

He skidded to a stop in front of the den and heard Ed enter another coughing fit. The doorway was still covered in a sheet and he attempted to strong arm his way through, only to have the fabric hold firm and nearly throw him back, to his irritated astonishment. The little shit HAD alchemically attached it to his wall. Of course he had.

He ran a hand through his hair and saw them. Gloves. Gloves in the pocket of his coat hanging on the rack next to him. Roy shook slightly as he slipped one on and ground his thumb and index finger together, the smallest of sparks allowing him to create an incision of heat, sweeping up the sheet like a zipper. He tore through the opening with the kind of frantic strength only adrenaline could offer.

The smell of ammonia hit him like a curtain. Ed crawled toward the door on his hands and knees, struggling to breathe between lengthy, grating groans of pain. His head hung, braid heavy over his shoulder as he wheezed and shook, pieces of glass dislodging from his automail and pinging to the floor. He’d shattered half the top of the coffee table and there was glass _everywhere_. His bangs slipped away from his face as he looked up at Roy, eyes wide, pupils pinpricks.

When Roy stepped into the room, hands outstretched, lips already curled around Ed’s name, Ed’s limbs gave out. He hit the floor and began to seize.

Despite the horrible things Roy had done he was still a top tier soldier, and if he could attest to one decent skill it had taught him, it would be efficiency under pressure. He immediately diverted to the seizure training the nurses had given him, things that he’d tirelessly studied and committed to memory. He would have to move Ed, which wasn’t ideal, but if there was at least one thing worse than a seizure, it was a seizure on broken glass. Roy carefully maneuvered him off his stomach and onto his side before pulling him a body length away from the wreckage of the coffee table. His eyes landed on Ed’s coat on the couch and he snagged it, tucking it under Ed’s head as he continued to seize, body contracting rhythmically, eyes wide and unseeing, breathing nothing more than short, strangled gasps that made Roy’s chest tight with fear.

“Ed, it’s Roy, can you hear me? You’re having a seizure. I need you to stay with me,” he said, running a gentle hand down Ed’s side, unsure if it helped him in the least but the nurses told him as long as Ed wasn’t being held down, it was okay to touch him. Ed’s previous seizures had all been absence seizures, and Roy wasn’t sure what their sudden reappearance – or their sudden transition from absence to tonic clonic – meant. But he knew the next steps.

Wait for the seizure to stop. Move him into recovery. Call for help.

The convulsions punched a few noises of pain from Ed, who squeezed his eyes shut and grit his teeth through it before he fell back into strangulated breathing. Roy ran a nervous hand back up and down Ed’s side.

“Please don’t stop breathing,” he plead quietly. “Please stay with me.”

With nothing else he could do until the seizure ended, Roy took account of the room. Nearly half of the table top was shattered. The half still intact was strewn with notes, some of them having slipped onto floor. Also on the floor was the leather-bound book, open to a blank page and covered in glass. The small vial of ammonia lay nearby, spilled on the rug and reeking. It had probably caused Ed’s coughing, but the seizure? Not likely.

The thing that put Roy off most was the fact that Ed was wearing boots, and his coat had been nearby and not hanging on the rack. Had he been planning to run?

He wasn’t sure how long it had been when Ed’s convulsions quieted enough for Roy to find a pulse at his neck. It was fast but even, and his sides heaved with the effort, but he was breathing.

“Ed. Ed, are you with me?” Roy asked, moving his fingers from Ed’s neck to gently grip his upper arm. Sets of shivering tremors continued to wrack Ed’s body, and Roy became uncertain that the seizure was really over.

“Ed,” he prompted again, giving his arm a squeeze. “Can you hear me?”

Ed’s lashes flickered. He stirred and groaned and tried to open his eyes, but they rolled and closed again. This happened a few times before he finally gave up and laid very still, aside from the rapid rise and fall of his ribs.

“Wha happ’nd?” Ed slurred, which were some of the most beautiful words Roy had ever heard.

He started to move Ed’s limbs into the recovery position while talking to him. “Ed, it’s Roy. You just had a seizure. You’re on the floor in the den. Don’t move, there’s a lot of glass.” He gently took Ed’s coat out from under his head and covered him in it. “I’ll be right back, I’m calling for help.”

And he did, fear trailing him like thunder, the meaning of the call hitting him full force when they told him the ambulance was two minutes away. He had to keep it together for at least that long. It would be Ed’s last two minutes in his home, but the need for him to be okay now trumped making sure he got to continue his outpatient rampage. When Roy returned, Ed’s eyes were open and he had propped himself up on his automail elbow, but he was drowsy and unsteady. He coughed, winced and whined, and coughed again.

“Why’s it. Hur so bad,” he wheezed.

“Where does it hurt?” Roy asked and stooped down next to him, setting a gentle hand on his back.

Ed still couldn’t focus properly, eyes flicking between Roy, the overhead light, and the mess of glass before rolling closed again.

“M’ journal,” he muttered, brows pinched. “Spilled it. It burns.”

Roy looked at the ammonia spilt on the floor, and the blank text nearby. Journal?

“What are you talking about?” he asked. “What were you doing?”

Ed ignored him and pressed a hand to his chest and yelped, then _screamed_ , launching himself into a sitting position, the suddenness of it nearly throwing Roy backward. Hand still on his chest, Ed started babbling, his words so slurred most of them were unintelligible, something about pain and Roy wondered if maybe he had forgotten his ribs were still healing because the newest seizure left his memory even further in tatters.

Then Ed started coughing again, bringing forth a gurgling, and Roy decided it probably wasn’t his ribs.

Ed clapped his flesh hand over his mouth. Their eyes locked, the expression on Ed’s face similar to the way he looked at the marks he’d left on Roy. The I-blew-up-the-building-on-purpose face.

Guilt.

The cough after that was wet against his palm and Ed grunted and winced. He moved his hand and, oh. Blood. It puddled in his palm and dripped down his chin and arm and onto the floor. Ed stared wide-eyed, lips pulled into a grimace.

"I think we've got a problem," he slurred, sounding as if he were speaking under water. He gasped and clutched his chest with his automail hand, spitting up more blood. "Ow, _fuck,_ " he wheezed, coughing up more and crying out again.

Blood with coughing meant the bleeding was in his lungs. Liquid in the lungs meant aspiration.

“Kneel,” Roy commanded, already helping Ed up on his hands and knees, Ed whimpering the whole while. “On your elbows.” He helped Ed lean down and when he started to cough again the blood came more easily, splatting against the hardwood floor. Roy’s heart hurt with every whimper and sob that tore from Ed’s throat.

When the fit was over, Ed pressed his palms to the floor and just let the blood flow, dripping from his lips into the spreading puddle.

The tangy smell of iron turned his stomach. Roy tried to remind himself what _looked_ like a lot of blood and what really _was_ a lot of blood were two different beasts, but it was difficult, especially with the way Ed gurgled and gagged, adding more to the mix and chipping away at Roy’s hope that he was going to make it out of this alive.

“I’m sorry,” Ed said, looking up at him with damp eyes, like he had anything to apologize for.

Roy’s throat tightened. He brushed Ed’s bangs back and leaned down to press a kiss to his forehead, as he’d longed to do the morning before. Ed’s skin was cold and clammy. “ _I’m_ sorry,” Roy said. There was a decent chance this was all his fault.

Ed remained on his hands and knees, shaking, breaths short. “I’ll allow it,” he said, voice low and slippery. "Kind of a dick. When you lose your shit."

Roy fought back a laugh that probably would have sounded a little tearful for his taste. "Yeah. I am," he agreed, stroking his hand down Ed's back. “What happened here?”

“Tried to. Fix it,” Ed gasped, squeezing his eyes shut. “Fucking ammonia, _fu-u-uck_.” He groaned long and low, leaning his forehead into Roy’s knee.

“You tried to fix the vial?” Roy asked, confused.

“ _No_ , I-” Ed gagged, shoulders shaking, and then spat bloody saliva into the puddle.

Roy saw the lights before he heard tires on the driveway, red and white flashing against the wall of the den. Ed looked up at them briefly, then let his head fall again. “They’re gonna take me away,” he said, exhausted.

Roy nodded even though Ed still had his forehead pressed to his knee. He combed a hand through Ed’s bangs, stroking his thumb over his temple. “Yes.”

Ed sighed and pressed his lips to the inside of Roy’s knee. It stained the fabric of his pajamas like a lipstick kiss. “I love you, y’know,” he whispered.

The confession made Roy’s eyes widen, his skin prickle, and his heart ache. Ed was saying it because he thought he wouldn’t get another chance to.

The front door slammed open and a crew of three EMTs entered, converging on Ed before Roy could think. It happened so quickly that he almost didn’t remember answering the bare minimum of questions one of them asked him. As soon as Roy was out of reach Ed became panicked, sobbing and scrabbling for the floor and dragging his coat with him as they loaded him onto a stretcher. “Please don’t let them take me, please, Al needs me, he’s there, I’ve got to go, please let me go-”

He broke into a coughing fit as they lifted him, blood splatter hitting the white hospital blanket around his waist. There wasn’t room for Roy in the ambulance, so he watched from the stairs of his porch, numb. Ed’s eyes locked onto his as they loaded him in. “I don’t want to die there!” he sobbed, and the EMTs yanked the doors shut. They peeled out of the driveway. Roy heard them flip on the siren as they exited the neighborhood, and then nothing, leaving him in a sudden, unsettling silence. The only thing he could do was go back inside, pick up the phone, and dial her number, because she was all he had left. She said to give her half an hour, which was fine. He had work to do.

He surveyed the now eerily quiet and ruined den, unsure of where to start. He decided channeling Maes was his best option, asking every item his eyes landed on _‘why are you here?’_

The plethora of loose notes seemed most likely to hold some sort of answer. Most of them sat in a stack on the unruined half of the coffee table, but some of them laid on the floor, covered in glass. Roy began to gather and separate, scanning them for any information that might tell him what the fuck was going on, or at least what had just happened to Ed. The majority seemed to be translated passages from the book on alkahestry, with further notations in two different sets of handwriting. One was definitely Ed’s, and the other wasn’t Al’s, so Roy assumed it was Hohenheim’s. It was his book, after all. Had Ed and his father been researching together during their stay in Resembool?

And if they had…why?

The annotations paid particular attention to alkahestry’s use on the mind and memories, and he remembered Ed mentioning alkahestry was a medically-inclined science. Correlation did not necessarily equal causation, but it was a little too coincidental for Roy’s comfort that Ed had been studying memories, only to lose his own.

One strange page was untitled, dated the day Alphonse went missing and Edward first seized. It was a list of small details that didn’t really go together. The dates 3.oct.10 and 5.july.16, the name Nina Tucker, Ed’s own address and phone as well as those of the Rockbells and the Hughes’s. Roy’s address and phone came last, and then a note that made his heart leap and sink at the same time. ‘Please don’t forget him’.

The next twenty or so pages all shared the same decorative border and seemed in good order. They were forms filled out in more of Hohenheim’s pen. The first page went through a list of psychological symptoms and then a target, which was filled in ‘sexual coercion by impersonation’, giving Roy a bit of a shock. He glanced over the next few pages, seeing that they had sections titled treatment type, condition after treatment, and results, but no patient name. Not only did it feel pointless and wrong to delve further into the personal records of a stranger, but he was on a time limit.

Roy leafed through further into the documents, finding the first pages to be one set of forms among many. There were three more filled out by Hohenheim, targets labeled ‘as previously discussed’, so Roy assumed they all belonged together. The symptom lists got shorter, the notes briefer. He wondered if Hohenheim had been treating people with alkahestry during his decade-long absence, and why he would give Ed a patient’s information.

Perhaps Ed had not only researched with his father, but also worked alongside him, their research progressing to practical application? Had they actually been…?

He looked at the treatment types, hoping for an answer, but there were only three to choose from. Removal, resection, or repression. Repression was the only one selected.

Next came two sets of the same form filled out in Ed’s pen. The first form did not have any symptoms listed, and its target was ‘The Alchemist, H.P. Lovecraft’. A book?

Confused, Roy flipped to the next one. Target: as previously discussed. The symptoms closely resembled those of the forms filled out by Hohenheim, so Roy assumed this one belonged with those as well. It seemed so strange that father and son would put forth so much effort as a team only to suddenly agree to never see each other again.

The last page made him freeze.

Target: slaughtering chimeras in Kadayr.

Roy sucked in a breath. His heart began to beat faster. He flipped the page, but the rest of the form was blank. He flipped it back over, scanning it again for something, anything, to tell him he was wrong.

His eyes settled on the decorative border and realized within it was a box for the date, and written there was the day Al went missing. The others filled out by Ed were from the day before and the day before that. Ed had just returned from Kadayr, had slowly been getting sicker.

Had been alone for those three days.

Roy snagged the very first form - the one that described the root problem - and scanned it for the date. July 23rd. The rest of them were dated sporadically over the following few weeks. Ed and Al were in Resembool at the time. Hohenheim was very likely with them when the forms were filled out.

Roy swallowed, the first target leering at him. Sexual coercion by impersonation.

Ed’s eyes came to mind, alight as he’d straddled Roy on the couch, his words dark and biting. _“For fuck’s sake, it’s a little late to save me from that.”_

Roy swallowed. He shouldn’t have been reading this.

He gathered up the rest of the notes in a flurry, his heart and mind racing, bringing all the papers together without regard to where they should have been sorted, desperate to just get them out of the way. He stopped.

Alphonse’s file was open beneath the notes, the picture of the inside of his armor laying on top. The pictures Hughes had given them the day of his death were scattered, but the one directly next to Al’s armor was what chilled him to the bone. Maes had included pictures of the casket, as if he knew he wouldn’t have the chance to explain. The scratches looked identical.

What was happening hit him like a slap to the face. At least, the worst of it did. Ed would do anything for Al, had trusted in the principle of equivalency, and had been betrayed. If Maes had had more access to Ed, he would have seen it even sooner. He would have known how much danger he was in and he wouldn’t have gone there on his own.

Roy set the notes back on top of the file and pressed his palms to the remains of the tabletop, glass squeaking in protest. He was going to have to go to the hospital to check in on Ed’s condition. And then he was going to have to go deal with this. It might be too late for Al. But he would have to try, because either way, Ed would be next.

“Sir?” Riza’s voice startled him.

He looked up at her, standing in the den doorway, and wondered what he looked like, wallowing in the middle of that glassy, bloody, wrecked room. Judging by her expression, not good.

Oh fuck, was he crying? He swiped at his cheek and it came away damp. Great.

“I need to talk to him,” he said, eyes burning and throat tight. “Now.”

It took a lot to upset Hawkeye but seeing the puddle of Ed’s blood on the floor did it, and she had to blink and breathe for a few seconds before looking at Roy’s wrinkled, blood-spattered sleep clothes. “I brought your spare uniform,” she finally said. “Let’s go.”

She was a saint.

He dressed in the back seat, hands shaking so badly the buttons were difficult. He could just hear Ed’s voice telling him he was lucky Corporal Can’t-Drive wasn’t driving, because he never would have been able to get properly dressed. By the time they got to the hospital, the doctor already had an answer. But it was never good when they ushered people into another room to give them the news.

They still had no idea what caused the seizure. Ed hadn’t seized again and until he did, they had something scarier to focus on. Because when it came to Ed, there was always something scarier than seizures.

In this case, a lung abscess with vein involvement. The bacteria that caused it was incompatible with Ed’s current antibiotic and had established itself a home in his right lung over the course of at least a week. The best they could tell, the ammonia had irritated him into coughing hard enough to rupture it. The infection was still contained to the lung, but the doctor’s eyes were grim. The threat of another rupture, of sepsis or aspiration, loomed over Ed.

Riza was stoic at the news, a soothing counter to Roy’s shock. “I let this happen?” he asked quietly.

Dr. Gray, who was fortunately taking call that night, shook his head slowly. “No, Colonel. It formed right where his automail made it impossible to see via an x-ray. Even if we’d taken an x-ray yesterday, the chances of us catching it would have been slim.”

The doctor clipped two x-rays onto the backlight, the first showing that Ed’s automail did indeed make seeing a decent portion of his right lung impossible. The second was taken at an angle so awkward that Roy could only take what Gray said for face value, watching as the doctor traced his pen over the cavity of the abscess, which was nothing more than a bright little sliver that rounded out just past his automail.

“He wasn't running a fever, yesterday or upon arrival tonight, which I found odd,” Gray said. “Drug screening showed his prescribed medication as well as a high dose of antipyretics.”

No wonder Ed had looked guilty and apologized. “He knew something was wrong,” Roy concluded, feeling a sharp stab of betrayal.

The doctor took a deep breath and nodded. “Yes. He knew.”

Roy was at a loss. He had covered for Ed. He had lied to the doctor for him, and in return Ed had lied to them both. He wondered how long Ed had been running a fever and coughing up blood, how long he had been so damn desperate to stay out of the hospital that he had possibly signed his death slip to do it. He had even confessed to making himself sick, Roy realized. He just hadn't understood at the time.

“What now?” Roy asked.

“He lost a decent amount of blood.” Fucking hell, Roy _knew_ it had looked like a lot. “We transfused one unit and are waiting for him to wake up. Once he does, he will be put under light sedation and kept on bed rest.” Gray’s face became even more somber, if possible. “I’m sorry Colonel. But the day has come. I’ll give you a few minutes with him, but my hands are tied for anything more.”

Roy knew he was not only shooting for the very unlikely chance that Ed would wake during those few minutes he was permitted to visit, but that he would also be conscious enough to give Roy any information regarding whether or not he was correct in his findings. It was very likely Roy was going to have to go into this blind and alone. Riza’s hand on his brought him back to himself. “Go see him. I’ll wait here.”

The lonely walk to Ed’s hospital room was a rough one. He struggled between guilt over acting like a monster toward Ed, who still had it within him to not only accept Roy's apology but tell him he loved him while struggling for every breath he took, and anger, wanting to yank Ed up by his collar and yell at him some more. But the guilt won. It always did. It ought to be him in that hospital bed. He would give anything for it to be.

When he got to the room, Roy froze.

The bed was empty, a gown discarded on the floor. Cleaning supplies from beneath the in-room sink were strewn over the floor. And the attendant who had been keeping an eye on Ed was slouched over. Roy rushed to feel for a pulse at the man’s neck and there was one, albeit slow, so slow it shouldn’t have been possible. The man didn’t so much as twitch. Roy looked over his head for wounds, looking for the class Elric knockout, and noticed the needle sticking out of his inner elbow, the syringe empty.

“Edward fucking Elric,” Roy seethed, dropping the man’s arm.

Two IV lines lay on the bed, dripping fluid onto the sheets. Heart racing, Roy traced a thin trail of blood over the mattress, onto the floor, and over to the window. Sure enough, there was blood on the sill, and a makeshift ladder had risen from the brickwork of the building.

White hot fear coursed through him. “WE HAVE A PROBLEM IN HERE!” he bellowed, whirling and striding from the room. A nurse was already hurrying down the hallway, looking concerned.

“Edward Elric drugged his attendant and is gone. When was the last time someone checked on him?”

“I- I don’t-” She looked into the room and a hand flew to her mouth. “Oh God. We need help in here!” she shouted, rushing in and feeling for the man’s pulse. Another nurse appeared at the door, a gasp escaping her as she came to the other nurse’s aide. A third appeared and Roy intercepted her before she could enter.

“When was Edward last seen? Did no one search him?”

She scrambled for the chart that hung on the door. “He was changed into a gown, he had nothing on him, I don’t know-” she stammered as she flipped through his chart. “The doctor checked on him half an hour ago.” She shoved the clipboard into Roy’s hands, as if it would quell him.

All three nurses descended on the unconscious attendant. One of them yanked off the bloody sheets as they laid him down on the bed. The sound of glass breaking was loud in the tiny room, and everyone froze. One of the nurses dug gingerly through the sheets and came up with a broken vial that Roy recognized immediately, his suspicions confirmed. Ed had somehow smuggled a vial of his heavy sedatives, as well as a syringe, along with him.

Dr. Gray was suddenly there, looking at the vial and calming the upset nurses. He held it in Roy’s view, face full of concern. “Where could he have gone, Colonel? His life depends on it.”

_“Al needs me, he’s there, I’ve got to go, please let me go-”_

“Oh no,” Roy whispered. “He went to the house.”

* * *

Of course when the doctor asked what house, Roy replied his own. Which definitely wasn’t the telephone booth he was currently near-begging Hawkeye to leave him at. She was still wielding her temporarily-equal military status like a sharpened sword and was having none of it.

“Sir, I’m sure you’re well-aware that splitting up is a bad idea,” she said as he unbuckled his seatbelt.

“Somebody needs to be at the house when the military shows up looking for their prized alchemist and their other one who was entrusted with his custody.” He went to open the door and she pressed the lock button.

"It would take just a few minutes to drive you down the street-”

Roy nearly laughed. He wanted to ask if delivering him directly to death’s doorstep would _really_ make her feel better but decided that would be the wrong way to head with what he was trying to accomplish. “Through all of those potholes? For what purpose, Hawkeye?”

“If Edward is there, we can just collect him and-”

“He is _not_ going to be that easy to find,” Roy countered. “And if he or anyone else sees or hears a vehicle, they’re gone. I need to go on foot.”

She clearly did not agree. He could see it in the white-knuckled grip of her hands on the steering wheel and clench of her jaw.

“Why is it so pertinent that I be at your home when the military arrives?”

“Before, if you want to be specific,” he said with a smirk. Her response was an unamused stare. “There are quite a few sensitive items in the front room. Documents, pictures, books. I need all of it put into a box and I need you to keep it safe.”

Technically, it was true. The last thing he needed was the military getting their hands on the blueprints for whatever Ed and his father had been dipping their fingers into. Fuck knows what kind of field day they would have. Riza did not look happy with his answer and by all accounts she shouldn’t have been, but there wasn’t any way he would tell her the truth and risk her trying to follow him into hell again.

“I know what you’re doing Roy Mustang, and I don’t like it,” she accused, which didn’t exactly sound like acceptance, but she hit the unlock button despite.

Roy opened the door and stepped out onto the grimy sidewalk before she could change her mind. His coat was unbuttoned and the wind whipped right through him. It was freezing. “Mind the glass and blood. There may be some leather gloves in the coat closet.”

“Please be careful, Sir,” she said. He nodded and shut the door, tapping the roof twice. 

The car window rolled down a moment later and Roy was worried she was going to just yank him back in through it. Instead Riza glared at him defiantly. “As soon as the military converges on this, I will be out here looking for you.”

He grinned. “I wouldn’t expect anything less.” He snapped a crisp salute that made her eyes widen. “Thank you, Lieutenant.”

Okay, maybe he shouldn’t have saluted, because now she was especially suspicious. But if he could leave with her one thing, he wanted it to be his utmost respect and thanks. Her brow furrowed, and she nodded. “Be careful, Roy.” She rolled up the car window, put the vehicle in drive, and pulled away. He watched her go until the tail lights disappeared.

He had a look around. It was the intersection where East 10th Street went from near-decent to wasteland. The streetlights became more sporadic, and he knew that just a little further down they would stop completely. It was starting to snow.

He pulled his hood over his head and managed a side glance at the phone booth. The glass was foggy and covered in ice crystals that made it impossible to see inside. It was for the best.

He had a mile to go. So he started running.


End file.
